Wondering why your credit score is stuck in neutral? When your credit score just won’t seem to change, it can be frustrating for credit-conscious consumers. You check on it once a month, and nothing has changed since you last checked.
Here are the most likely explanations if you’re wondering why your credit score hasn’t been rising recently.
1. You’re Utilizing An Excessive Amount Of Your Credit Limit
The component that has the most monthly impact on how your credit score is calculated is your credit utilization, which is the percentage of your total available credit that you are actually utilizing.
Generally speaking, you should always try to keep your credit usage between 20% and 30%. Therefore, if you have $10,000 in available credit across all of your cards, you should never carry a balance of more than $2,000 to $3,000.
Your credit score is probably being hampered if your balances are above that range.
2. You’ve Skipped One Or More Payments
The good news is that late payments only affect your credit score if they are more than 30 days overdue. Even though you might incur a late charge if you miss a payment by a week, your credit score won’t be affected.
The bad news is that your credit score might suffer greatly if you miss a payment by 30 days or more. Even though it has been a while since you missed a payment, this would explain why you are still having difficulties raising your score because it can take over a year for your score to recover from this.
3. You Open Too Many New Accounts.
The bank or lender will pull your credit report when you apply for new credit, which is referred to as a “hard credit check.” One hard credit check won’t hurt you much because it typically lowers your FICO® Score, the most popular sort of credit score, by less than five points.
But if you keep applying for fresh credit, you can get into trouble. These stringent credit checks add up. Even if they don’t lower your score, they might prevent it from rising, keeping you at a standstill.
4. Your Accounts Are Not Sufficiently Old.
Older accounts are better for your score since credit bureaus assess the average age of your credit accounts as a scoring factor.
If you have opened one or more accounts during the last year, it can take a little while for those accounts to mature before your credit score increases. This problem is particularly prevalent among individuals who open numerous credit cards.
5. Your Credit Report Contains A Significant Adverse Event.
Your credit score may be significantly impacted by some situations, such as filing for bankruptcy, failing on a loan, or having an account go to collectors. They won’t only significantly lower your credit score; they’ll also have an ongoing negative impact on your credit for years to come.
It can take six months, a year, or longer before your score starts to rise again if there are any issues like this on your credit report. Of course, you should check your credit report at least once a year to make sure no erroneous bad items are harming your credit.
6. Your Credit Score Is Already Very High.
It gets difficult to keep raising your credit score as it rises. You may raise your score while it is in the 500s or 600s just by not making any mistakes. Your credit score will gradually increase if you pay your bills on time and don’t overextend yourself.
Increasing your score can be more difficult after it is in the 700s. You can keep raising your score, but improvement will come more slowly.
Although you may put a lot of effort into improving your credit score in this area, you should first consider if it would be worthwhile. The truth is that your credit score is sufficient if it reaches a range between 760 and 780 on the FICO® Scale.
Getting Back On Track With Your Credit Rating
It’s typical for your credit score to experience some growing pains given all the various elements that can affect it. Once the issue has been identified, it is possible to fix it and raise your score once more.
We will improve your scores not only because we want to see you succeed, but also because our reputation relies on it. Give Credit Repair Bay Area a call and we can get started right away.
