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I am currently at 42% utilization in overall revolving, credit card debt between three cards. My total credit lines equal $27K. I am looking to buy a house by the end of the year and I am working hard to reduce my overall utilization. The mortgage broker I am dealing with wants me to get all of my cards down to 50% utilization. That would put me at about 20% utilization overall.

Does the FICO scoring look at overall utilization or individual utilization? I can probably get two cards down to half, but not the third by this summer when I go for pre-approval. My credit scores are 680 TU, 650 EXP, and 640 EQ. The mortgage broker said he uses the middle score, so my EXP score would be used currently. I had a short sale in Nov 2012, so my score is probably lower than it should be.

Chris W. Rea
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My answer at How will going from 75% Credit Utilization to 0% Credit Utilization affect my credit score? offers a bit of detail, but the bottom line is that Utilization is aggregate. My $10,000 limit card is fine to push to $8K each month only because my other lines add up to quite a bit, so utilization is 10% or so.

I recommend you look at CreditKarma, they offer a score that tracks the scores you see, and it's updated weekly. A good tool, at no cost.

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JoeTaxpayer
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