Credit utilization

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 06/16/2010 - 05:38
Forums

Hi,

I have a question on credit utilization. I currently use only one credit card, and it has a high balance on it - greater than 75 percent of the card limit. But none of the others have such a high balance. The amount owed compared to the credit limit is less than 20 percent. Does keeping a high balance on this one card affect my score, or do they look at total owed to total limit? What would be the best approach to improve my score or at least not hurt it. I am trying to refinance my house.

Hi Berford,

Both the credit utilization of individual account, and overall credit utilization affect your credit score. Credit utilization of a single account will affect the overall credit utilization, and this in turn will affect your credit score.

As you have exceeded the credit limit of one of your accounts, this is going to affect your overall credit utilization, and this in turn is going to negatively affect your credit score.

Thanks,

Aaron

Wed, 06/16/2010 - 09:49 Permalink

utilization does effect your credit but it spread out over all your cards. I have found that it is difficult to keep track of payments to several cards and cause lates

Thu, 06/17/2010 - 13:46 Permalink