My family;s credit score
All of my life, I have never carried a balance on my credit
cards. I have always used the convinience of the cards (and these
days, the 1% cash rebates or the 5% gas rebates!). I have always paid
them off each month.
My wife is exactly the same way. Furthermore, we don't have any
car payments or other things that would drop our credit. The only debt
we have is from college. Each of us has still about $7000 to pay back.
We are finally ready to buy a house. I have always thought that
because of how we handle our finances, we would have immaculate credit
scores. However, because of this house buying experience, I had to
figure out just HOW Immaculate it really is. We actually don't have as
high a score as we'd thought. We scored a 759 out of 850. This has us
puzzled. Just what does one have to do to get 800??? (Or dare I dream
of 850??).
What more could we do? I don't mean to sound perfectionistic,
but how could we have missed the mark by nearly 100 points??? And
furthermore, the people who get 800's and 850's: what more are they
doing that we are not doing? It is my impression that remakably few
people have Zero Credit card debts. Therefore, we must be in a very
small minority.
We make good incomes (six figures), and we have no debt. We
don't buy new cars, so we have no car payments. We have never had a
late payment. We have owned credit cards since age 18 (we are 34 now).
Is it because we don't have long enough of a history? Just how far
back do they look?? Do we need like 25 or 30 years of history to get a
better score? I always thought they only take the last 7 years of
history (ie when people have bankrupcies, they only go back 7 years,
right).
Please enlighten us. Any knowledge/advice/suggestions that you
can dispense out to us will be very appreciated.
Just taking a stab in the dark here, but I would think that you should carry
at least a small balance on your credit cards. I would think that this would
show your ability to make on time monthly payments rather than paying the
balance off each month.
Like I said, this is just a thought so now I am ducking flames from the
financial guru's