FHA LOAN

[GOLF81]

So here's where I'm @.  Last November I went to see Prospect mortgage.  My scores come back ... 607 EQ, 525 EX, 560 TU.  He told me to pay-off / settle collections and reduce my UTIL.  I've done all of that and I just ran "myfico" and got EQ 603, TU 610, EXP 655.  I'm not sure what else I can do to get to 680 likes he wants me.  I'd really like to be home shopping right now.  But it looks like I'm still on the sidelines...

[StartingOver10]

Have you visited the rebuilding section here?

Getting your score up is a combination of taking care of the past credit issues and having new credit. If you don't have any type of new credit or ongoing current paid on time credit your scores won't recover to the levels you need.

[ShanetheMortgageMan]

You don't need a 680 score to get an FHA loan.  Majority of lenders are OK with 620 or 640 scores for their FHA loan programs, a small handful will even go down to a 600 or even lower.  If you are at 603/610/655 now it may just be a matter of making a few more months of on time payments before your score could reach the 620 level.  How many open & active trade lines do you have going on right now?

[GOLF81]

Current Trade Lines...

1.  Merrick Visa - CL $1000 / Bal $151 - Never Late

2.  FingerHut - CL $1400 / Bal $252 - Never Late

3.  Cap One - CL $300 / Bal $0.00 - Never Late

4.  Cap One - CL $1050 / Bal $200 - Never Late

5.  BOA Visa - CL $2800 / Bal $750 - Never Late

6.  Auto Loan - BAL $7500 - Never Late

[ShanetheMortgageMan]

It appears you have enough open credit reporting on time payments each month that you should gain a handful of points each month.  I bet you'll be at a 620 score by spring.  You may want to experiment and see if paying off 1/2/4/5 gets you a boost in credit scores too, or you could have your credit checked by a loan officer and they can run a "What if" simulator to estimate what the scores would do if you paid those accounts to $0.

[GOLF81]

Thanks for the help!  If i have my credit run again by LO wont that affect my score in the INQ.

[ShanetheMortgageMan]

It depends on how long ago your credit was checked and when you'll have the next credit check.

http://www.myfico.com/CreditEducation/CreditChecks.aspx says:

Does the formula treat all credit inquiries the same? No. Research has indicated that the FICO score is more predictive when it treats loans that commonly involve rate-shopping, such as mortgage, auto and student loans, in a different way. For these types of loans, the FICO score ignores inquiries made in the 30 days prior to scoring. So, if you find a loan within 30 days, the inquiries won't affect your score while you're rate shopping. In addition, the score looks on your credit report for rate-shopping inquiries older than 30 days. If it finds some, it counts those inquiries that fall in a typical shopping period as just one inquiry when determining your score. For FICO scores calculated from older versions of the scoring formula, this shopping period is any 14 day span. For FICO scores calculated from the newest versions of the scoring formula, this shopping period is any 45 day span. Each lender chooses which version of the FICO scoring formula it wants the credit reporting agency to use to calculate your FICO score.

So technically you have a 30-day window.

[Walt_K]

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@GOLF81 wrote:

Current Trade Lines...

1.  Merrick Visa - CL $1000 / Bal $151 - Never Late

2.  FingerHut - CL $1400 / Bal $252 - Never Late

3.  Cap One - CL $300 / Bal $0.00 - Never Late

4.  Cap One - CL $1050 / Bal $200 - Never Late

5.  BOA Visa - CL $2800 / Bal $750 - Never Late

6.  Auto Loan - BAL $7500 - Never Late

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Assuming you are letting these balances report, change that so that only one card reports a balance.  On that one card, let it report 9% or less of its CL.  That should optimize your score from a utilization perspective and might give you all the points you need immediately.