Help! Trying to qualify for Home loan

[Anonymous]

My husband and I are currently trying to purchase a home using the FHA program.  My scores are 590 with equifax and 627 with transunion and I believe the experian is around 595.  My husband's scores are 580 with equifax, 652 with transunion and we are unsure of the experian score.

We have a bankruptcy that is 4 years old and have had a few late payments since, but nothing in the last 2 years.  Before we starting looking for a home we traded vehicles last August and that lowered my scores by about 40 points.  We have been thinking that they would come back up, but they have not at this point.  The only credit I have out is the auto loan, an unsecured loan, and some student loans.  I have no revolving credit.

I am told our middle score needs to be at 620.  What can I do to help my score out?  Is there anything other than time that we could do?

The only problem we have at this point is the credit score.  We had an approval for a loan on a short sale house, but lost out because we were unable to get another extension on our loan because our score was not at 620.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

[Anonymous]

620 is the correct answer but you're probably going to want to go on over to the Rebuilding Your Credit forum to get advice on how to raise your scores. You'll want to be specific so a recent credit report will be helpful to figure out what's got your scores so low.

Good luck!

[Anonymous]

One thing (and I hate to be the bearer of bad news...) but usually one of the requirements for a post BK loan is absolutely zero lates post BK.  With strong compensating factors they might overlook 1 missed paymetn or seomthing, but if you went through a period of multiple lates post BK your loan will almost certainly get tossed out in underwriting.  Also, I believe in this case it can only get approved through AU, and not manual.  I could be wrong though on that...That is just what I remmeber hearing and things have only gotten stricter... 

As a warning, the LO may still tell you you can qualify otherwise, but unless you have an AU approval I would want a statement from the underwriter the LO has sent the file to prior to bidding on any properties.

Again, if it was 1 late and there is a really good explanation it might fly, but if it was multiple and/or lasted a couple/few months this is going to be a very tough sell.