Totally agree on the tiers thing. When we refinanced a few years back, I was obsessing over nudging my score from like 745 to 760ish, thinking it'd make a huge difference. Turns out, lender basically shrugged—said anything over 740 was gravy. But yeah, they did grill us about a store card we'd opened six months earlier (for furniture, of all things...). Lesson learned: stable DTI and no recent credit moves matter way more than squeezing out those last few points. You're probably good to go as-is.
Yeah, that whole furniture card grilling sounds familiar—lenders can get oddly fixated on the weirdest stuff. I had a client once who panicked about a 10-point drop after paying off an auto loan early (go figure). But honestly, once you're comfortably past that 740 mark, it's usually diminishing returns. If your DTI's solid and you've avoided recent credit moves, you're probably golden already. Unless you're planning some major purchase soon, waiting for those extra points might just be wasted stress...
Totally agree about the diminishing returns past 740, but I've seen lenders get hung up on credit utilization too—even with scores in the high 700s. Had a buyer last spring sweating bullets over a $200 balance... lenders can be weirdly picky sometimes.
Yeah, lenders can definitely get hung up on weirdly small details sometimes. Makes me wonder—do you think it's more about their internal guidelines or just the individual underwriter being extra cautious? Either way, better safe than sorry, I guess...
From my experience, it's usually a bit of both:
- Internal guidelines are pretty rigid, especially post-2008. Lenders have tightened up their criteria significantly, and sometimes the smallest detail can trigger a red flag in their system.
- But individual underwriters definitely play a role too. I've seen cases where two different underwriters at the same lender gave completely different responses to nearly identical situations. Human judgment still matters a lot, and some underwriters are naturally more risk-averse than others.
I once had a refinance delayed because the underwriter questioned a minor discrepancy in my tax return—literally a rounding error. Took an extra week to sort out, and it was frustrating because it seemed so trivial.
Makes me wonder, though... do you think lenders will start relying more on automated systems to remove some of this inconsistency, or will human judgment always be necessary in lending decisions?