Here is my 'guess' and it is just that...a guess. Concerning 2 and 3. refinanced my mortgage early in 2005 to a very good rate. This now shows as a 'new' loan, and it has not been paid down much in one year, by their way of thinking. I have about $160K in untapped equity (no HELOC or anything), in what remains If I understand you correctly, you have equity in your home, but have not applied for a HELOC on it. Right? They don't have any idea really then that you have that equity...right? Now this is just a 'thought' but you might want to pay off the car loan with some of that equity in your home, and then concentrate all your efforts toward paying off the HELOC. I imagine there will be some who will say 'NO' to doing that though. I applied and was approved for a HELOC a few years ago, but have never tapped into it. I 'thought' I might want/need it to get the driveway paved, but found another way that was interest free for a year and that was all I needed. I might add that I have no loans 'open' at this time and no revolving credit 'owed', as CC are paid off each month. My guess is that once the car loan is paid, that your score will improve significantly. In the meantime your score is a high B, which is still miles above the norm. Sue

Evaf , thank you! I will check out credit karma. The only negative things on each of our credit reports are a few medical bills. Yes we do use loans ( like I said my husband likes to change cars every year... oh, and i have a new student loan, graduated nursing school last year!) And we are looking to refinance our home, so that will be a new loan. The guy at lending tree calledafter we were apapproved and said he was puzzled by the low scores, because they have people with scores of 725 or better that have don't have credit histories as good as ours. He said that they have a department that specializes in fixing credit scores, and they are going to look at ours because they shouldn't be this low. We will see if he calls back, because the last one didn't. That's why I asked the question here. Evaf, i thank you. Yours was a very helpful response. Kirkhall, I'm not sure if I'm being overly sensitive, but I did not find your response helpful at all.

The credit report says "Too many open accounts", as 'househunting' has stated. (well something like that) I have about 7 open, 3 with balances. I don't remember my fico - at least 760 but under 800. Thx for all the info here. I haven't read it ALL yet, but I will certainly look into reducing cr limits rather than closing...altho, there is one I know I can close. The 'average' history time is something to keep in mind. My credit report looks really messy and confused. I've found that ONE of my cc accounts 'appears' on report like 3 or 5 times! So, it looks like I have more than I actually do. This is due to banks/financial mergers/buyouts, and the company changing the cc accounts #'s for one reason or another. For example: I had cc 'A' several years back which I had used and paid off. Then another company took over bank "A" - The company sent a new card with new company name on it. which is now cc 'B'. (cc 'A' is no longer valid) Then company "B" upgrades my account after some time, sending me a new card with new acc't # (cc "C" - "to REPLACE existing card". (I never used bank "B" or "C" cards.) Another company takes over company "B", sends me new card with *their* name. Now I have cc "D". After awhile, company "upgrades" my account, "to replace existing card". Now I have cc "E"...which I have used. So, my credit report reflects 5 cc's, but in reality only ONE cc has ever been valid. It's not like I 'applied' for all these. They just kept sending them automatically to REPLACE another. This also happened recently with a major bank cc...I had had the same acct # for over 25 years, and suddenly they sent a cc with a new acc't #. When I called about this, they said they were changing ALL customers' account #'s. SO, my credit report reflects TWO accounts, when the card is actually the same. (And it really IS the same. I can call and enter my OLD acc't # and the same exact info is reflected...such as balance, pymt rec'd, etc. Well, I paid that one off Nov...so I don't know now. For two cards and two accounts, my report LOOKS like I have/had SEVEN different accounts. (Which I DID, but, not really....does that make sense?) OK, now I'm really mad since I've written this out LOL! It never occured to me how updated/replacement cc's could mess up one's cr report! I wouldn't be able to rent from 'househunting', because it appears worse than it really is! HA! OK, then I have another problem with old Dept Store CC's showing up...The stores have merged or no longer exist, yet they are still on report. (An example would be *like* Robinson's/May...I had a Robinson's card, and I had a MayCo card. I only used them each once for work gift exchange!, and I've never had a 'Robinson's/May' card.) I haven't used many store cards for at least 15 years! I have used Penney's and Mervyns', but closed those out years ago (when I found out they also accept visa/mc) Guess it's going to take a lot...

I've never heard of tri merge. When you say company Im assuming you mean lenders right? I know 21st mortgage does loans for those with sub prime credit but I'm hesitant to use them because of the not so good things I've read about them. I only know of a couple other lenders but not sure if they do loans for "high risk" borrowers..aka those with not so great credit. I am hoping they look at 20k down as a great down payment on an 80k house. I have a pamphlet I got from a dealer for 21st and they have an equity loan that requires 35% down for those with bad credit but I'm not sure exactly what an equity loan is to them. I think your right, I just need to talk to a lender and hopefully they can give me advice without me having to take the hit on my credit (i.e. They can advise without running my credit) just based on "soft" info that I give them about my credit history. Thank you for your reply :) PS if anyone has lender names and experiences they can share I would love to hear your story!