My husband and I are buying first home, my credit score is 650 and I have high balances on my 3 credit cards?

But my none of my credit cards balances are over $800. It is smart to add a credit card that I will not do anything with but just to have as an open credit card? Will that help my credit score at all and bring down my debt to credit ratio?My husband and I are buying first home, my credit score is 650 and I have high balances on my 3 credit cards?
Playing the credit card game is a bad idea. It will bring you nothing but debt.





Find a bank that does manual underwriting for home loans. It's the way it was done before all the fico score worship. Back when bankruptcy and debt was almost unheard of. Today with all the fico score lending. Bankruptcy and debt are out of control.My husband and I are buying first home, my credit score is 650 and I have high balances on my 3 credit cards?
It depends on how much credit you've obtained recently. Applying for credit causes a ';hit'; to go on your credit report. Too many hits in too short a time (any more than 2 in 6 months usually) can cause your credit to go down. Your best bet would be to pay down the debt you already have because, while opening a new card will make your overall debt-to-credit ratio look better, it still doesn't look good to have 3 high balances.
Eventually it will, but if you're looking to purchase soon, I wouldn't advise opening a new account as it will take an immediate hit on your credit. Your husband's credit score will be taken into account as well, but you didn't indicate his score. Its possible that you can get a home loan with that score, but you won't get the best rates.





If you're a year away from a home purchase, getting another card might not be a bad way to go, since that will give possibly enough time to recover/improve your score. You're going to get the best rates if you and your husband can get your scores over ~760, so my advise would be to wait on the purchase, and sock away as much as you can on a down payment. I know you indicate only $800 or less on each card, but total credit utilization is critical. Myfico.com says that the best rates are reserved for those with total credit utilization (total debt relative to total credit limits) of around 10%.
Hi maglite81





Beleive it or not paying off your credit cards every month does not help your credit. Think about it. Lenders look for people who can maintain a credit balance and make on-time monthly payments. By doing that you become the perfect candidate for a lender. The algorithm for the FICO score actuall looks for that when it grades your credit.





You actually want to maintain an overall balance on your credit cards of between 20-30% (your debt to credit ratio) and make sure all your payments are on time. This is one of the surest ways to build credit. Your credit card balances are looked at as a whole. So if all your cards combined have a total possible credit limit of say $10k, then keep a combined balance of $2-3k.





I'm not saying you always need to keep this balance going. But begin doing this say 3 to 6 months before applying for any type of large loan like a home or auto loan. Once you have been approved, it's ok to pay those balances down. I'd always keep some small token balance just to show you can make payments each month. Hope this helps!





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If you hope to buy that home in the near future, don't apply for any credit cards or loans.





The fastest way to increase your score would be to pay off those credit card balances. Carrying balances of more than 30% of your available limit hurts your score. Paying them off is the fastest way to get a big boost.
Paying down your credit card balances would increase your credit score.
It depends how much you need to use... you can find details about credit cards at,


Hope this will help you.


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