I am now in the dreadful process of waiting for manaul underwriting to decide my fate on a home. I was approved with automatic underwriting with scores of 631,631,625. My biggest fear is not my scores, it's my payment history. In November 2007, I sought the help of a debt management program for my 8 credit cards totalling almost $60,000. In July 2011, I thought I'd check my credit score/report to see where I was at. Wow! Was I suprised. All 8 cards were reporting lates for 30/60/90/120 days since roughly November 2007. To make a long story short, prior to going with a DMP, I had fallen 2-4 months behind on the accounts. When I called my creditors I was informed that although I had been making monthly payments since November 2007, I never made up the late payments, thus I had been late for all this time. Shock to me. I never received any phone calls, never received a late fee, and all that time had very favorable interest rates. But, as a man, it's my own fault in the first place...Well, I immediately paid all the past due amounts and since August 2011 through March 2012, I received good marks for these accounts and now have no debt. I have two new cc accounts since February 2012 and pay them in full each month. So no lates for one year come August 2012. Does anyone know if the underwriter will sooo deny my loan because of this history of lates? I had to write a letter to explain which I did. I am going with a VA loan, employed with same employer for 16 years, $71,000/yr, zero debt, and $10,000 in savings (and climbing). The negatives: late payment history, 2 small collections/paid over one year ago, 4 of the 8 cc's were charge-offs. Although it may not help, I never took a settlement and paid them all back in full.
