November of 2013 we sold our house. We were going to buy a house right after, but I pulled my credit and to my dismay my score was 513! This was just this past November of 2013! Thanks to myfico.com I have gotten a ton of insight on how to raise my credit score. The lenders officially pulled my score for the first time last week and my score was at 562. It was far from 620 (the minimum qualifying score for USDA) so I decided to get on myfico and check my report. I looked for any inaccuracies. I called up every place that had a derogatory payment against me. i spent hours and hours on the phone....finally I was able to get my two most recent late payments deleted off of my report. I then paid down two crdit cards that were over 80% utilization. Lenders did a rapid rescore and my new credit score is now 636! My score has gone from 513-636 in two months. Don't lose hope people! it is possible to raise your credit score in a short period of time! 
