General Credit Topics

[thomas803]

Greetings,

I am new to the sight and have struggled with credit issues after disaster 3 years ago.  I have 9 accounts that I have settled / charged off or paid on my credit report.  The loan account I have is my car payment witch I have never been late on.  I am 27 years old now and my scores are 620 from Transunion,  622 from the other one (can't remember the name for some reason) and equifax doesn't have a score for me. 

I met with a mortgage broker with my girlfriend and am able to buy a home because of our scores combined comes out to 660.  He told me that to repair my credit I would need to get back in the game and open some revolving accounts.  My fico a year ago was in the 500 range.  I have learned my lesson and am committed to rebuilding my credit.  After much speculation I took the brokers advice and Applied for a home depot card.  I was rejected because of my past delinqencies and my lack of revolving credit.  My questions for this forum are two fold- Will my new mortgage help my credit and what other advice can you give me to get me building my fico again?  thanks in advance - Tom

[Noah_Bodie]

First, don't post the same thing thrice.

Are the adverse TLs all PIF?

Do you have any CCs now? Secured or not?

Any TLs with lates only?

Message Edited by Noah_Bodie on 06-19-2007 10:44 PM

[Timothy]

Time is your best friend in your situation.
Eliminate as much "inaccurate data" as you can on you CRS's - sounds like you may have done this.

Any Credit cards you have need to be kept under 10% utilization

Your mortgage will change your score and long term it will improve it.
Now that you loan is closed- make very calculated decisions on how and when to add trade lines,

Read the Credit 101 thread.

try http://whogavemecredit.com/

[thomas803]

Sorry about the triple posting it was an accident.  to answer your questions,  I have no credit cards now just my car loan which is almost paid off.  Some of the bigger adverse were not paid in full.  They were charged off and then settled for about 70% of original balance.  3 of the 9 were handled that way.  Sears, Amex and Discover.  All others were charged off or late but paid in full.

[Noah_Bodie]

PIF or settled, the OC still got paid. I would try to GW all the paid or settled accounts.

http://ficoforums.myfico.com/fico/board/message?board.id=generalcredit&message.id=5933

[masdeocho]

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thomas803 wrote:

... My questions for this forum are two fold- Will my new mortgage help my credit and what other advice can you give me to get me building my fico again?  thanks in advance - Tom

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Welcome, Tom.

To answer your first question, it's the other way around.  You need to improve your credit in order to get a decent rate on a mortgage.  Second question: has been answered by the experts.

Allow me to go OT for a second:  It's great you and your girlfriend are working together on this.  Do you expect to be together in 30 years, when the mortgage is paid off?  Joint finances can get messy if you split up, especially if you are not married.  No need for you to respond to this, I'm just raising the issue.

[Boswd]

You might want to look into a sub-prime card.   Your scores aren't horrible but your past is haunting.  thre should be a couple of credit card companies out there that will give you an unsecured card with a fairly low credit limit, my guess with your scores between $500 and $1,000.   I would try Orchard Bank or Bank of America's  Visa Platinum plus first.     If you get denied for an unsecured,  I would be very diligent about some other companies out there.   You don't want to buried in bs fees ( processing fees, applications fee's and high  annual fees)  so read all the fine print in the terms and conditions sections.

Odds are you are going to have to pay some form of fee you just have weed them out.  I personally would stay away from store cards for know.   I think it's better to establish yourself with a reputable bank or financial institution plus it allows you to build your credit by using it on neccassary everyday purchases, not the store bought purchases.    If you have to go secured IMO  you aren't going to find a better deal than Bank of America's secured, it only has a $29 annual fee.   Orchard Bank is next best.

[MidnightVoice]

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masdeocho wrote:

Allow me to go OT for a second:  It's great you and your girlfriend are working together on this.  Do you expect to be together in 30 years, when the mortgage is paid off?  Joint finances can get messy if you split up, especially if you are not married.  No need for you to respond to this, I'm just raising the issue.

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Is there such a thing as a "pre-non-nuptial" agreement? 

[Boswd]

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masdeocho wrote:

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thomas803 wrote:

... My questions for this forum are two fold- Will my new mortgage help my credit and what other advice can you give me to get me building my fico again?  thanks in advance - Tom

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Welcome, Tom.

To answer your first question, it's the other way around.  You need to improve your credit in order to get a decent rate on a mortgage.  Second question: has been answered by the experts.

Allow me to go OT for a second:  It's great you and your girlfriend are working together on this.  Do you expect to be together in 30 years, when the mortgage is paid off?  Joint finances can get messy if you split up, especially if you are not married.  No need for you to respond to this, I'm just raising the issue.

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That is very very sound advice,   We wish you the best but be very limited on what you joing together.  I recently just got married, 7 months ago,  and what we have done is opened up joint savings, joint checking  but also keeping our own separate checking accounts.  

[masdeocho]

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MidnightVoice wrote:

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masdeocho wrote:

Allow me to go OT for a second:  It's great you and your girlfriend are working together on this.  Do you expect to be together in 30 years, when the mortgage is paid off?  Joint finances can get messy if you split up, especially if you are not married.  No need for you to respond to this, I'm just raising the issue.

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Is there such a thing as a "pre-non-nuptial" agreement? 

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Yes.  It's called a cohabitation agreement.