Credit score was 884 2 months ago but is now 494 - can't get a mortgage due to this

Rasterize

Hi all,

I have a mortgage agreed in principle with Woolwich accepted around one month ago for a property worth £430,000. However since house hunting I have realized the large difference in standards between a property priced £430,000 and a property priced around £500,000.

Since Woolwich were not prepared to lend me anything more last week my broker went to Nationwide. Nationwide said everything about my application (such as income, accounts etc) was fine but I was failing their credit checks. We asked to get this manually reviewed but they said there was nothing they could do, as my score/history was too poor.

I already had an Experian account so I logged on to find any issues. I ordered my last report September 9th 2010 for which my score was 884 ('Good / above average' category). I ordered a new report on Monday 15th November and was shocked, my score is now 494 ('Very poor / high risk' category).

I'm really confused about where to find the reasoning for this. I'm comparing my new report with my old report but don't see anything obvious which would lead to me being considered as 'high risk'.

I have uploaded some screenshots of my report, all sensitive info regarding my identity has been removed. I can't post links as I'm a new user so you'll have to copy and paste.

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So I'm thinking maybe credit-cards?

New report (15/11/2010): imgur.com/45Uz0.png
Old report (09/09/2010): imgur.com/Yhf1L.png

But the only difference I see is the Egg card addition which I received in September. I am only using credit cards to build up my rating and have never missed a payment.

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So maybe its to do with the number of credit searches I've had?

New report (15/11/2010) 17 searches past 12 months: i.imgur.com/NdUId.png
Old report (09/09/2010) 8 searches past 12 months: i.imgur.com/C0XXO.png

Experian 16/11/2010
Nationwide 12/11/2010
Nationwide 12/11/2010
Barclays 07/10/2010
Experian 29/09/2010
William Hill 17/09/2010
William Hill 17/09/2010
MBNA 09/09/2010
Egg 09/09/2010
/* CUT OFF POINT BETWEEN REPORTS */
Google Payments 03/08/2010
Vodafone 09/07/2010
HSBC 30/06/2010
FDE 28/04/2010
FDR 28/04/2010
MBNA 15/02/2010
Experian 16/11/2009
Experian 16/11/2009

Since the previous report in September I've had 9 more credit searches thanks to 2x Experian (I didn't think Experian checks counted?), 2x Nationwide, 2x William Hill and 2x Egg (assuming MBNA is doing a check on behalf of Egg) and 1x Barclays.

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Can anyone help me find the reason why my score has gone from above average to high risk in a matter of months? I missed out on buying a property I wanted because of this stupid credit scoring system :mad:

Thanks in advance

luckyfool

Your own searches of Experian are "unrecorded" so they are not visible to other credit providers and will not impact on your credit score. I would be surprised if the number of searches had that large an impact, though they will not have helped. Is there definitely nothing else (late payments on credit card or loan, increased balances, unauthorised overdraft or over credit limit)?

CloudCuckooLand

What are the William Hill entries for?

Could be a red herring, but I would assume "gambling". Maybe Lenders do, too.

The score is mostly irrelevant. Different lenders have different approaches to the fine detail.

CloudCuckooLand

luckyfool wrote: »

..increased balances..

Gone from £76 on 1 card to £1800 across two cards....

Could be a red flag for some lenders?

concerned43

The amount of searches does effect your score and you have had a lot!

Rasterize

luckyfool wrote: »

Your own searches of Experian are "unrecorded" so they are not visible to other credit providers and will not impact on your credit score. I would be surprised if the number of searches had that large an impact, though they will not have helped. Is there definitely nothing else (late payments on credit card or loan, increased balances, unauthorised overdraft or over credit limit)?

I have no overdraft and all of my bank accounts have a decent amount of money in them. I don't have any loans, I just use credit cards: HSBC Premier Mastercard, Capital One card and an Egg card. I was under the impression that using credit cards would boost my score and credit history. I've never missed a payment and all payments are made via direct-debit each month.

luckyfool

Using them by spending on them and clearing in full every month is a positive for credit score. Having high utilisation of the credit limits is generally a negative. i.e. If you are up to 90-100% of your credit limit on a card it will be a negative on your score.

Rasterize

concerned43 wrote: »

The amount of searches does effect your score and you have had a lot!

Yeah since September 9th I've had 9 searches, but apparently the Experian ones do not count, so technically I've had 7 searches. It doesn't help when each search is from a company doing 2 checks. Nationwide and Barclays are my broker searching for the best deal, Egg and MBNA is me getting a new Egg card and the 2 William Hill ones are the setting up of an online betting account which I do for fun, nothing serious .. like 60-70% of the population do.

CloudCuckooLand wrote: »

Gone from £76 on 1 card to £1800 across two cards....

Could be a red flag for some lenders?

I've been using the cards a lot more since September, I thought it would help show lenders I can pay off large sums no problem. But maybe you are right, it could be seen as a red flag if all of a sudden I'm borrowing lots more. I just paid off all of my balances early .. around £3k and will only use the cards for smaller payments from now on .. to see if that makes a difference.

luckyfool wrote: »

Using them by spending on them and clearing in full every month is a positive for credit score. Having high utilisation of the credit limits is generally a negative. i.e. If you are up to 90-100% of your credit limit on a card it will be a negative on your score.

I didn't know that, I thought it would show I can pay max limits off no problem.

AndersLimpar_2

It must be all the searches, although totally inocent and needed in most cases, they have harmed your score.

The whole system of scoring is pants imo.

ILW

Don't think 70% of he population have betting accounts.

CloudCuckooLand

Rasterize wrote: »

2 William Hill ones...like 60-70% of the population do...

Made up numbers don't turn into facts all by themselves. More like 60-70% don't bet at all, let alone online, let alone when they need a mortgage to go through a credit check period...

It could be nothing to do with it...

But to decide to "have a bit of fun", which involves a credit search, at the same time as making a mortgage application is the biggest gamble you've had to date...

...hope it pays off.