First time homebuying journey, now with new collections!

[Anonymous]

Been working on getting into position to buy a home and have found many like local down payment grants and other aid to help and working with a local HUD counselor. They've got me prequalified by BB&T on 2/23 for up to 146k in an FHA loan. Finally found a house I'd like to put an offer on Friday after a few others fell through. The asking price is 99.5k with 15k,down payment assistance and an additional 5k if I put up $1250. So I was instructed by my realtor to call my loan agent and have them prequalify me for this house and let us know how much time they need to close and to get the ball rolling on these grants. No big deal right? She's been super easy to get ahold of. But she's out of town and the person that's supposed to be her alternate contact has been unavailable as well. (*Edit: Got in touch with her, her comments regarding these collections in a reply)

Time is ticking and driving me nuts, the pressure is on to find another lender but I dont know if that'll jack up my credit at this point as the inquiries wouldn't be back to back. To pile on to the rising adversity, I just received two collections on my report Saturday night/Sunday morning from a Labcorp bill that I've never seen til Friday. Dropped my Credit karma scores 60 points. Have the money to pay these bozos off easy but it'd be the least they could do to have actually billed the right insurance and get paid 100%, or failing that contact me by the right address. *Edit: These are definitely medical. Probably from my son's birth. They total $132.

My CK fakos are sitting at 643 TU, 637 EQ and creditscorecard FICO is EX 675, having not shown a collection as of yet. My proper FICOs from the counselors were approx 620, 660 and 680 when they were pulled in Jan.

Starting to freak out not knowing what the right moves are now.  

(Also updated to show that this is an FHA loan)

[krielly]

sounds like these are medical collections?  Seems like I've heard something somewhere about them being able to be removed if they are due to insurance billing issues. i'm sure others will chime in....

[Anonymous]

Defintely medical, updated post to clarify.

[krielly]

I believe paid medical collections can be removed (although not necessarily automatically) as of a couple of years ago, but hopefully others will respond as well.

[Anonymous]

Update, heard from the lender who has told me my report they have on file is good for 90 days and to go ahead and make an offer, but not to let it drop below 640. Thinking to go back to the housing counselor to pay for another 3 bureau report+score. Figuring at this point I need to call this collector and try to arrange a pay for delete, getting the PFD agreement faxed to the housing counselor should be plenty of proof of the agreement right? Wanna get this nailed down fast so nothing unexpected happens. The collector offered a 50% reduced payoff, I'd be willing to pay the full amount if they can give my delete, whatever it takes to get my family into a house and out of these crummy rentals. Close date will be May 9 if offer accepted and all goes well.

[Anonymous]

Wont be able to get a 3B from the housing counselor til Thursday. Need to decide whether I should act sooner than that or see what the actual damage is before responding.

Also, discovered I am still listed as an authorized user on my credit card. Account is from 2012 and has a perfect payment history but balance is 4400 out of 5180 so it's a big impact on my utilization. I am expecting it will be to benefit to remove this promptly by calling Citi, but I don't know for sure that it'd be a positive impact so I don't want to act rashly.

I calculate my DTI will o be about 27% with the expected mortgage .

[Anonymous]

If you're really interested in seeing your scores, you can pay for the update here on myFICO. 

I've seen from people on here that some lenders ask for authorized user accounts to be removed if it's helping your credit or not. Thank goodness our lender allows authorized user accounts. To get removed as an authorized user, it's a simple phone call to the card company and the change is immediate on their end. Not sure how long it takes to make the change on the credit report. 

[krielly]

Just doing some more perusing and realized what I HAD heard about medical collections was that for FHA anyhow, most lenders don't require paying them off unless they go over a certain $$ amount. YMMV. Yours are low. Unless you can get the CA to agree in writing to remove them if you pay, I would sit tight for now on them.

[Anonymous]

Labcorp will likely remove the collections if you agree to pay.  I had a collection pop up out of the blue with them, I was really upset so I emailed the CEO and told them I always pay my bills on time and that I had no problem paying this bill either but I request that they remove the collection so it doesn't impact my credit for 7 years.  They sent a message right back and said they would be happy to do that as a one time courtesy.