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Paid or unpaid collections count in the same negative manner. Try getting these removed by sending good will letters to the collection agency reporting them. They seem to be your only negatives so you may see a score increase if all are deleted.
Keep your reporting balance on your CC at 10% or below.
Do you have a car loan or other type of installment loan? FICO likes to see a mix of credit. However, since you are trying to get a house, I would not try to get any credit now. What is your AAoA? What is your oldest reporting account?
Repairing your credit takes time and effort. I cannot say that by having the collections accounts removed your score will raise 50 points in 2 months. Too many variables in FICO scoring and credit reporting. What I do know is that the 3 collections, paid or not, are considered negatives on your CR. If you can get them removed you will see an increase in your score. By how much, I cannot be sure. You also need a mix of credit but as I said, you do not want to try to get anything now, in the middle of trying to get a house.
Thank you for your reply! I really appreciate your time.
I've read about good will letters in the past. I've even called these collection agencies requesting them to delete the collection but they all told me no....that they can not do this. I've heard about other having better luck but I'm not sure what the best tactics are. Do you have any suggestions for having these removed?
Thanks again.
hvc, you mentioned you pulled you and your wife's "3" scores last March, which "website" did you pull these "3" scores from? Also, are you sure all six of the reports pulled (3 for your wife and 3 for you) are reporting your 3 credit card balances at 10%?
Thanks for the reply Fused;
Our mortgage broker friend pulled our credit reports back in March...That is where those numbers came from. Those numbers from March do not reflect the 10% balances. We are on myfico.com and see that our scores have come up since paying those balances down. We need to be at a 660, at least. My wife is at 617, as of today. I'm at 603.
Hi hvc1974 sorry to hear about your situation hopefully everything goes well for you and your family in the end getting reports cleaned up is a struggle and unfortunately takes time and only you can make sure it is a smooth transition not a credit repair agency which is out there to make money on other people problems. My suggestion is for you to list your creditors of the collections that you have there are alot of people on this forum including myself who have been in the same situation in which we can help you with goodwill letters giving you names of higher up personnel like a ceo so you will have a better shot with a goodwill deletion.
Have you and your wife pulled your 3 free reports ( 3 for you and 3 for her) in the last 12 months at annual credit report? If not, I advise that the two of you do. Just get the reports, forget about the scores at that site, lenders don't use those scores. Take a very careful look at all of the reports, look for even the "smallest" differences bewteen the 3 of them.
Some more questions!
- How old is your oldest account? Do not include collections? The same goes for your wife
- Are you sure there in no other bad stuff on your reports, or hers, besides the old paid collections and lates?
Wow...thank you Tray!! This is fantastic!
I'm very intersted in learning how I can get these items deleted. Like I said, I've tried calling and politely asking to have the items removed...especially since the items were paid. What I found out is because these collections are old I probably made it worse paying them which brings the collection into a more recent activity. Whereas if it was left alone, then it would have shown as unpaid but it would be an old collection. So I actually did more damage by paying them than if I had not. Everyone I talked to was extremely kind but were unwilling to help me even after knowing that the balances were paid in full and we're trying to buy a home.
Here is what I have on my report:
Thanks again for your time and assistance.
Have you considered going with an FHA loan? You wouldn't need a 10-20% down payment, and many lenders are still approving applicants with credit scores around 620. You should ask your LO friend about this, or perhaps asking another LO, if your friend is not familiar with FHA.
Hello!! Unfortunately we can't do FHA because of the price of the home and Texas' rules.