Considering that it is so incredibly important for a person's financial well-being, there is a surprising amount of mystery surrounding the FICO method of evaluating credit scores. According to FICO itself, examining its own data revealed some solid information about how much a person could expect their credit score to rise after a delinquency falls off of their report.
Their primary findings were that one delinquency removed from an account holder over a three month period typically resulted in a 14-point rise in their credit score while a removal of all outstanding delinquencies over the same period showed a 33-point increase. Although this might not seem like a dramatic increase, they also point out that the penalty for major negatives on an account decreases over time, so the recovery after it actually falls off can be modest.
Rick Good spent ten years in the newspaper business, including with The News & Observer (Raleigh, NC) and The Greenville News (Greenville, SC). He co-wrote, with Melinda Coleman, Rutledge to Riley: Governors of South Carolina, 1776–Present (Published by The Greenville News), and is the author of Mind Games Trivia #1 (Amazon). He has recently spent 15 years creating original trivia content through Sounds Good Mobile Entertainment and continues that with his new company, SGME Software. He edits The Smart Reader’s money, real estate, and business coverage.
