Advice please

[Anonymous]

I am not exactly sure what my scores are at this point because I stopped the monitoring process,(probably high 500s)  but in the next two or three months I plan to pay down my two other cards ($500 and $300). I just paid down the other $500 one I have. We are hoping to buy a house next summer and are saving to have around $13,000 for closing and down payment for a FHA. 

Once I pay off these cards, I was planning on contacting a mortgage broker to see if they could advise me on how to get approved. I figured it is a hard pull but that would be at least 7 months before we would want to buy. I have several collections, so I want to ask if I should pay them or not. Do you think this is the best way to go about getting approved?

[DallasLoanGuy]

probably depends on how old they are..... if you can execute a 'pay for delete' then i would say go for it.

paying them might not help the score though. 

leaving them may or may not affect the mortgage. you CAN close with open collections/chargeoffs.

[Anonymous]

Thank you! So you think talking to a lender would be a good thing , so they can tell me what I should be doing in the next several months?

[DallasLoanGuy]

i always recommend starting early in the process. 

credit is good for 90 days.... so a new credit pull will be done later.... but a good loan officer can coach you on what needs to be done

[Anonymous]

Thank you so much!