Credit score 540 need home loan.

[coterotie]

First the good news is that credit scores have no memory.  Meaning if you get it cleaned up today, your score jumps tomorrow.

If you haven't visited the rebuilding forum you should.

If you go FHA on the house you will only need about $4K in cash and a 640 to close so you have a little flexibility.

A couple of things jump out at me:

1. Medical, these can be cleaned up by following specific steps which you will discover on the rebuilding forum. 
2. The smaller collection accounts.  Do a PFD on the phone bill, they are usually the easiest to negotiate with.
3. The former apartment - you need this one completely gone as it will hinder your ability to even rent something decent in the future.  Write them a letter offering to settle for $100 or you will be foreced to pursue the matter further, include the photos.  Give them 5 days to respond.  If they don't then go down to small claims court and file a small claims suit against the apartment building owner, management company (if one)  and the collection agency.  Sue them for the entire amount plus your expenses plus if your jurisdiction allows mental distress and the damages to your good name and reputation.  If you have the evidence and any independent witnesses include this with the filing.  Then write the collection agency and the apartment building stating your intent to depose every one who you can name and also other John Doe's as you may discover through deposition and discovery.  My gut tells me this goes away quickly.  (Lots of web sites will walk you through this process)

Once you get to about a 640, you are in the game for FHA.  But if your file is like you represented, you could easily top 700 in 30 days. 

FInally, I am assuming you are current on your fed and state taxes and have the appropriate copies to prove your income for pre-qualifying purposes.

[Anonymous]

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@coterotie wrote:

First the good news is that credit scores have no memory.  Meaning if you get it cleaned up today, your score jumps tomorrow.

If you haven't visited the rebuilding forum you should.

If you go FHA on the house you will only need about $4K in cash and a 640 to close so you have a little flexibility.

A couple of things jump out at me:

1. Medical, these can be cleaned up by following specific steps which you will discover on the rebuilding forum. 
2. The smaller collection accounts.  Do a PFD on the phone bill, they are usually the easiest to negotiate with.
3. The former apartment - you need this one completely gone as it will hinder your ability to even rent something decent in the future.  Write them a letter offering to settle for $100 or you will be foreced to pursue the matter further, include the photos.  Give them 5 days to respond.  If they don't then go down to small claims court and file a small claims suit against the apartment building owner, management company (if one)  and the collection agency.  Sue them for the entire amount plus your expenses plus if your jurisdiction allows mental distress and the damages to your good name and reputation.  If you have the evidence and any independent witnesses include this with the filing.  Then write the collection agency and the apartment building stating your intent to depose every one who you can name and also other John Doe's as you may discover through deposition and discovery.  My gut tells me this goes away quickly.  (Lots of web sites will walk you through this process)

Once you get to about a 640, you are in the game for FHA.  But if your file is like you represented, you could easily top 700 in 30 days. 

FInally, I am assuming you are current on your fed and state taxes and have the appropriate copies to prove your income for pre-qualifying purposes.

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Great points, but I want to clarify the minimum credit score requirement for FHA.

500-579 you can finance up to 90% LTV

580+ you can finance 96.5% LTV

Now many lenders have overlays which require higher minimum credit scores, but there are plenty of lenders who will go below 640.

[coterotie]

Thanks for correcting the numbers for me.  I knew I was safe with the 640 as a pretty universal minimum.

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@coterotie wrote:

First the good news is that credit scores have no memory.  Meaning if you get it cleaned up today, your score jumps tomorrow.

If you haven't visited the rebuilding forum you should.

If you go FHA on the house you will only need about $4K in cash and a 640 to close so you have a little flexibility.

A couple of things jump out at me:

1. Medical, these can be cleaned up by following specific steps which you will discover on the rebuilding forum. 
2. The smaller collection accounts.  Do a PFD on the phone bill, they are usually the easiest to negotiate with.
3. The former apartment - you need this one completely gone as it will hinder your ability to even rent something decent in the future.  Write them a letter offering to settle for $100 or you will be foreced to pursue the matter further, include the photos.  Give them 5 days to respond.  If they don't then go down to small claims court and file a small claims suit against the apartment building owner, management company (if one)  and the collection agency.  Sue them for the entire amount plus your expenses plus if your jurisdiction allows mental distress and the damages to your good name and reputation.  If you have the evidence and any independent witnesses include this with the filing.  Then write the collection agency and the apartment building stating your intent to depose every one who you can name and also other John Doe's as you may discover through deposition and discovery.  My gut tells me this goes away quickly.  (Lots of web sites will walk you through this process)

Once you get to about a 640, you are in the game for FHA.  But if your file is like you represented, you could easily top 700 in 30 days. 

FInally, I am assuming you are current on your fed and state taxes and have the appropriate copies to prove your income for pre-qualifying purposes.

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Great points, but I want to clarify the minimum credit score requirement for FHA.

500-579 you can finance up to 90% LTV

580+ you can finance 96.5% LTV

Now many lenders have overlays which require higher minimum credit scores, but there are plenty of lenders who will go below 640.

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[Anonymous]

Would love to talk to someone about gettin finance with a 500. I will start tryin to work on the other stuff but I'm kinda in a bind, and need to move asap. I do not beleive what my landlord is trying to do is legal but I cant fight him. Sitting down with my wife, we came up with about 160$ in extra fees he is goin to charge us. If I can find someone to finance us with a 540 I'll be all over it. The asking price for the home is 67,000$ I have 10,000$ as a down payment that would be under 90% finance. I have all the paper work I need to show that taxes have been paid for the last 5 years. I can prove my wifes, and my income at any given time. I have talked to 3-4 differnt lenders and everyone says based off of the info I have given them I would not qualify for a FHA loan.

[coterotie]

Like I said, you could be 60 pts higher by the end of the month.

Likely even if a lender approves you some of the conditions may require you to start a payment plan on the collection stuff.  If you apply for a mortgage you will lose all negotiating leverage.

If you jump on the stuff and get rid of it you will be money ahead and you forestall these guys getting a judgement which would really put a whammy on you.

It might be better to suck it up and pay the $160 to be out of there in a month.  If your contract allows him to charge the fees then there isn't much you can do about it except move.

One other suggestion would be to see if the seller will give you a lease purchase option.  Give hime $1,000 which will be used as the down payment and sign an agreement that you will pursue aggressively the financing of the home.  

I think you will see through the rebuilding forum that you can get the issues holding you back cleared up very quickly.

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@Anonymous wrote:

Would love to talk to someone about gettin finance with a 500. I will start tryin to work on the other stuff but I'm kinda in a bind, and need to move asap. I do not beleive what my landlord is trying to do is legal but I cant fight him. Sitting down with my wife, we came up with about 160$ in extra fees he is goin to charge us. If I can find someone to finance us with a 540 I'll be all over it. The asking price for the home is 67,000$ I have 10,000$ as a down payment that would be under 90% finance. I have all the paper work I need to show that taxes have been paid for the last 5 years. I can prove my wifes, and my income at any given time. I have talked to 3-4 differnt lenders and everyone says based off of the info I have given them I would not qualify for a FHA loan.

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[Anonymous]

God I hope someone is still reading this. After I started this topic we found a home. It is owner finaced at this time. But my family and I are in a safe place the owner was understanding and im sure 10k in his pocket helped push this along. We moved out of our hell hole the last weekend of June. Now here is my problem. The new owner of the trailer park I was living at told me my old contract was void and he no longer had to honnor it. With that being said that the contract was void I took it as it was void for both parties. I guess I was wrong..... less then 30 days after we moved he hit me with this...  Now the if we go back to the orignal contract it was a month to month contract as long as I paid on time i could move with a 30 day notice. Seeing my old contract was void I seen no reason to give the 30 day notice and we left asap. What do I do to get this taken care of. I do have the orignal contrat and have had it looked at. I was told this is not legal but I dont know how to fight it. I have contacted the credit bureau's and its been almost 30 days I have got nothing from the collection agent or the credit bureau that I reported this to as wrong info. HELP PLEASE! I'm Still tryin to work on my credit score alone and its up not where I need it to get a home loan yet but I've got time to do everything right and not in a rush. So im taken my time, been doing alot of reading on here. 

Open

Account #2

$17,790

Balance

09 APARTMENT MH EQUITIES TIMBER R

Original Creditor

$17,790

High Balance

Jul 21, 2015

Opened Date

Sep 08, 2015

Last Reported

Joint

Responsibility

Placed for collection

Remarks

[Anonymous]

You need to have a lawyer look at this, explain your rights, and maybe even send the owner a letter. If it's not legal, then the lawyer can threaten lawsuit and likely the owner will respond by canceling the debt. But you need some solid legal advice. Call a real estate attorney.

[Anonymous]

Well I spoke to soon, got the letter today that all collections from this account has been removed! I'll take that as a win! It was bs collections and im happy to be done with this sob forever.

[2b2rich]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Well I spoke to soon, got the letter today that all collections from this account has been removed! I'll take that as a win! It was bs collections and im happy to be done with this sob forever.

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Who did you get this letter from?

If  you disputed this with the credit bureaus and you received a letter from the credit bureaus that it was deleted, you would still want to get legal advice from an attorney because it doesn't necessarily mean it's over.  They may have just not responded to the dispute and could easily put this back on your report, or worse yet, just sue you and hope you don't show up in court so that they win by default and then you're going to be asking us how to remove a judgement :/

If it is from the actual owner of the property who first reported it, then good!  Make several copies of it and even scan it and back it up on a disc!  You never know when someone like that may come back later and claim you actually do still owe it.  Better to be safe than sorry!  (Really happy for you that you got out of there, sounds sort of like the Hotel California!)