Your credit score, and what it costs you
Written for the 500s and 600s, where a few points change which loans you can get and what they cost. What actually moves a score, what a mortgage lender does with it, and the fastest honest ways up.
What actually moves your score
FICO publishes the rough weight of each part of its score. Two of them carry nearly two-thirds of it, and both are things you control: paying on time and how much of your credit you are using. If your score is in the 500s or 600s, the reason is almost always in one of those two rows.
Whether you pay on time. A payment 30 or more days late is the single most damaging ordinary event on a report, and the more recent it is, the more it costs. Collections, charge-offs and bankruptcies sit here too. Old lates fade — most of the damage is gone after two years — but only if nothing new lands on top of them.
Mostly credit card utilization: your card balances divided by your card limits, overall and card by card. Under 30% is fine, under 10% is better, and one maxed-out card hurts even when the total looks fine. This is the fastest factor to move, because the score only sees the balance on your latest statement — it has no memory of last month’s.
The age of your oldest account and the average age of all of them. Only time fixes this, which is why closing your oldest card is a mistake.
Recent applications (hard inquiries) and newly opened accounts. Each inquiry costs a few points and stops counting after a year. Several new accounts at once reads as risk.
Having both revolving credit (cards) and installment loans (auto, student, mortgage). It helps a little. It is never worth taking out a loan to get it.
What is not in your score
Your income, your savings, your job, your rent (unless you sign up to have it reported), and checking your own credit. A lender looks at income and savings separately — the score only measures how you have handled borrowing.
Estimate where you stand
Six questions, one per factor. The estimate is a teaching tool built on FICO’s published weights, not your actual score — no real scoring model is public, and two people with the same answers can be 40 points apart. Its real use is the second half: which change would move you most. Nothing you pick leaves this page.
What your score does to a mortgage
A score does three jobs in a mortgage. It decides which programs you qualify for, it sets the price — the rate, or the points you pay for a rate — and on a conventional loan with less than 20% down it sets the cost of mortgage insurance.
1. Which loans are open to you
| Program | Typical minimum | What to know |
|---|---|---|
| FHA | 580 · 500 with 10% down | The most forgiving mainstream program. Many lenders set their own floor at 580 or higher, so 500–579 is hard to place in practice. |
| VA | No VA minimum | For eligible veterans and service members. Most lenders look for 580–620. No monthly mortgage insurance. |
| USDA | ~640 typical | Eligible rural and suburban areas, with income limits. Below about 640 the file is usually underwritten by hand. |
| Conventional | 620 at most lenders | Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loans. Price and mortgage insurance both improve in steps up to 780. |
| Jumbo | 700+, often 720+ | Above the conforming loan limit. Larger reserves too. |
Typical program and lender minimums, which vary by lender and change over time. The buyer’s guide covers each program in Michigan.
2. The price moves in 20-point steps
Conventional loans are priced in bands of 20 points: 620, 640, 660, 680, 700, 720, 740, 760 and 780. Every step down adds a price adjustment that shows up as a higher rate or as points paid at closing. Inside a band, the exact number does not matter. Across a line, it does — 679 and 680 are priced differently; 681 and 699 are not. If you are a few points under a line, that gap is usually worth closing before you lock.
How much rate a lower score costs depends on the program, the down payment and the day’s pricing: anything from a fraction of a point to more than a full point at the low end. What does not vary is the arithmetic of what a rate gap costs:
| Rate higher by | Monthly payment | More per month | More over 30 years |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starting point | $1,996 | — | — |
| +0.25% | $2,047 | +$51 | +$18,224 |
| +0.50% | $2,098 | +$102 | +$36,625 |
| +0.75% | $2,149 | +$153 | +$55,199 |
| +1.00% | $2,201 | +$205 | +$73,939 |
Illustration: a $300,000, 30-year fixed loan starting from 7.00%, a round number chosen for the arithmetic — not a quote, an offer, or a rate available today. Principal and interest only; taxes, insurance and mortgage insurance would add to the payment.
3. Mortgage insurance follows your score — on some loans
On a conventional loan with less than 20% down, private mortgage insurance is priced by score, and at the bottom of the range it can cost two to three times what the same loan pays at 760. FHA’s mortgage insurance does not change with your score — a 600 and a 780 pay the same premium. That is why, below roughly 680 with a small down payment, FHA is often the cheaper loan even though conventional is available. The only way to know is to price both, which any loan officer should do for you without being asked.
The point for the 500s and 600s
You can usually buy a house with the score you have. The question is what it costs. Moving from 619 to 620, or 639 to 640, can open a program or a price tier, and the cheapest points to gain are the ones in the next section — often within a single billing cycle.
The fastest honest ways up
In the next 30–60 days
- Pay card balances down before the statement closes. The balance on your statement is what gets reported, not the one on the due date. Paying before the statement date can drop your reported utilization to near zero without changing what you spend. Get every card under 30%, then all of them together under 10% if you can. Pay down a maxed-out card first.
- Bring anything past due current. An account that is 30 days late becomes 60, then 90, and each step is reported as worse. Stopping the slide matters more than anything else on this list.
- Pull your reports and dispute real errors. Free from all three bureaus, weekly, at AnnualCreditReport.com — the only official site. Look for accounts that are not yours, lates you did not make, a paid debt still showing a balance, and the same debt listed twice. Dispute with the bureau in writing and keep copies.
- Ask for a higher limit on a card you already have, as long as the issuer does it without a hard inquiry. Same balance, bigger limit, lower utilization.
Over 3–12 months
- Set every account to autopay the minimum. Then pay more by hand. Autopay makes the next late payment impossible, and the next year of on-time payments is what lets old lates fade.
- If you have little or no credit, build some. A secured card (a deposit becomes your limit) or a credit-builder loan from a credit union, used lightly and paid in full. Being added as an authorized user on a family member’s old, low-balance card can help a thin file, though mortgage underwriting sometimes discounts those accounts.
- Leave old cards open. Closing one shortens your history and shrinks your total limit, so the same balances become a higher utilization. Put a small recurring charge on it so the issuer does not close it for you.
- Stop applying for new credit. Each inquiry costs a few points for a year. Store cards at the register count.
Before you pay an old collection
Talk to a loan officer first. The older score versions most mortgage lenders use can count a paid collection the same as an unpaid one, so paying it does not always raise the score — though a lender may still require it paid before closing, and an agreement to delete it in exchange for payment can help. Paid medical collections, and medical collections under $500, no longer appear on reports from the three bureaus at all.
Skip the credit repair company
Everything a credit repair company can legally do, you can do yourself for free: dispute errors and wait for them to be corrected. Under federal law they cannot charge you before the work is done. Anyone who promises to remove accurate information, or to give you a “new” credit identity, is offering something illegal.
How mortgage lenders read your credit
- Your app’s score is probably not the lender’s. Banking and credit-card apps usually show VantageScore or FICO 8. Most mortgage lenders still pull the older FICO versions mortgage lending has used for two decades, with newer models being phased in. The numbers can differ by 20 points or more, in either direction.
- The lender uses the middle of three. Your score is pulled from Equifax, Experian and TransUnion, and the middle one counts. With two borrowers, the lower of the two middle scores has usually set the price.
- Rate shopping is one inquiry — if you keep it tight. Mortgage inquiries within a short window count as one. Do your comparing inside 14 days to be safe under the older score versions.
- A rapid rescore can capture a quick fix. If you pay a balance down after your credit is pulled, a lender can ask the bureaus to update it in days instead of waiting for the next statement cycle. Only a lender can request one.
- From application to closing, freeze your credit life. No new cards, no car loan, no furniture financing, no co-signing, and no closing accounts. Lenders pull credit again before closing, and a change can undo an approval.
Four things people get wrong
“Checking my score lowers it.” Checking your own credit is a soft inquiry and never affects your score. Check as often as you like.
“Carrying a small balance helps.” It does not. Using the card helps; paying interest does not. Pay the statement in full.
“Paying off a loan will raise my score.” Sometimes it dips slightly when an installment loan closes. Pay it off anyway if it saves you interest — just not the week before a mortgage application.
“Income affects my score.” It does not appear on your credit report. It matters to the lender, separately, through your debt-to-income ratio.
Within reach of a line — 580, 620, 640, 680? A short conversation about which balances to pay first, and in what order, can be worth more than months of waiting. Book fifteen minutes, or reach me at ryanrybarczyk@outlook.com. A conversation is not an application, a credit pull, or a commitment to lend. When you are ready to buy, the buyer’s guide picks up from here.