Can you ask your credit card companies to lower your limit????

I am working hard to get my credit score up so we can buy a house in about 2 years. I have all but one card paid off. I have 3 other cards (which I need to keep open) with no balances.

My question is, can I ask my credit card companies to lower my limits?? I know that having too much extended credit effects your score and my credit limit to earnings ratio is way too high now. Does it look bad when you do this? Does it impact your credit score?

TIA for advice you can give.

Re: Can you ask your credit card companies to lower your limit????

yes you can but when they look at your credit, they dont only look at your amount outstanding but also how well you use your credit. You may have 3 cards that have zero blances but if you do not use them you might as well have no credit.

My advice, keep your credit cards at the levels that you have right now. Use them monthly, buy gas with them, or groceries or pay a bill with it BUT pay it off COMPLETLY when the bill comes in!!

HTH's

Re: Can you ask your credit card companies to lower your limit????

According to the books the DH read you should only lower the credit limit if the balance they gave you is something ridiculous like 10,000, then lower it to 5k. Lisa is right make sure that you do use them every month for something and pay them off immediately.

Re: Can you ask your credit card companies to lower your limit????

Thanks so much for the info.

I think I am definitley going to have my limits reduced. I have two cards with high limits, one $15,000 and one $5,500. I know this is probably gonna hurt my credit if I keep them that high.

Re: Can you ask your credit card companies to lower your limit????

Mortgage companies are in no way going to penalize you if you have a high credit card limit. In fact, it is quite the opposite. If they see you have a high credit limit and pay your bills ontime, use the card on a consistent basis and PAY OFF THE CARD EVERY MONTH, your fico score actually goes up! I have a high credit limit, pay my bills ontime, use the card on a consistent basis and have almost flawless credit. So all the stuff you hear about limiting/lowering credit card limits, get rid of balances or close a credit card is just plain false information, that is if you pay ontime and show you are using your credit wisely.

Re: Can you ask your credit card companies to lower your limit????

What I am concerned about thou is that my credit limit to income ratio is high. I do not make that much now because I am a full-time nursing student. My yearly earnings from my part-time job is not in line with the amount of credit I have available to me. My limits were high from when I use to make a lot more money. I thought I read that it does not look good if you have too much credit because the potential for high debt is there. Am I wrong?

Re: Can you ask your credit card companies to lower your limit????

I don't think you should have a problem. I am a full time law student, with very low income (one part time job that I get paid for, and one part time job that I volunteer for). My credit limit is VERY high, I make barely any money, and my credit is almost a perfect score.