How to manage/understand credit scores

It’s nonsense.

The entire thing is a racket. I'd threaten to find a different lending company. I don't know if that would change anything or not, but it could be bullshite.

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My wife and I are purchasing a new home. Through all the credit report websites and Chase Bank we have excellent credit (815 for myself and 804 for her)

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That's how ours were when they checked for our mortgage. I told her my score got a "man bump"

One of the easiest ways to raise your score is just request credit limit increases across all your cards you have. I try to do this every year, sometimes every other year.

I dont think I've ever been turned down, even if some of the increases were fairly small (like say $17k to $18k).

This will help your utilization automatically if your spending doesnt change.

I.E. tou have $40k in available credit and get increased up to $50k and normally spend $5k/mo on cards

5000/40000 = 12.5% utilization
5000/50000 = 10% utilization

They say keeping it 10% or under is needed for the best score in utilization. So if you only have like 1 card open with a $20k limit and you spend $5k a month, you should open more cards even if you dont really use them. They will see that as fairly high utilization in terms of credit score impact especially in months you spend a lot (say $7k-$8k).

My wife and I hover around 810-825 on Transunion/Equifax

Be careful the lending company isnt picking a worst date to do the pull, like right before you pay off credit cards in a month and its the max amount you have on there

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They say keeping it 10% or under is needed for the best score in utilization. So if you only have like 1 card open with a $20k limit and you spend $5k a month, you should open more cards even if you dont really use them.

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Interesting, this is the boat I am in as my credit score has been stuck at 825 for the better part of 6 months. I put all of my expenses I can on one credit card and pay it all off at the end of the month. Typically this runs around 3k and I have $23,200 in available credit which would put my utilization around 12.9% every month.

So if I open another credit card with an additional 5k in available credit that would bring my total utilization down to 10.6% thereby raising my score? Doesn't opening a new credit card reduce your score due to the hard credit check that comes with it?

It's a temporary hit on your score but goes away eventually. Lessens the impact after a year and goes away completely after 2 years. The impact of this is much less than credit utilization.

The issue is you're probably never going to spend less, only more or about the same each year and the only way to significantly decrease your utilization if you only have 1 card is to get more cards ultimately. It's unlikely the 1 card holder would give you day a $35k limit from $23k now vs. opening 2 other cards for $5k-$10k each maybe and maybe getting closer to $35k-$40k available credit instead.

First thing I'd do is still just see what your current card will increase to, its the easiest thing you can do. Then if it's pretty minor I would consider adding some cards. Maybe stagger them every 6mo to yr or so, so you dont tank your score opening 2 or 3 at once. Credit card churners open cards all the time and retain 800+ scores without much a hitch, its not as bad as people think.

Utilization is like 1/3 of your score. Payment history is about another 1/3. New credit is only 10%.

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Is there a way to find any of this out?

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If you're on credit karma they have credit score simulators based on changes you might do, although it can be a bit rudimentary.

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However, the lending company is coming back and we are getting dinged because she has a low credit “middle score” of 751

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I know everywhere is different, but holy shite if they are trying to give a higher rate here. The few times i've talked with any, anything like 740 and above they were pretty much good witht heir best rate offers, assuming there was no real issues historically.

Once I was refinancing with an expectation of getting a sub 3% mortgage. Rates were consistently sub 3%, I had good credit, etc. However, when the loan manager presented me with final papers to sign the rate was just above 3%. I told them I wasn't interested. They seemed taken aback, probably because they were used to people just taking what they can get or it was a ploy on their part feigning surprise as an excuse to try to screw me. They dropped the rate and I signed the papers.