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I am conditionally approved for USDA Guarantee and my minimum FICO had to be 640 but some lenders may go lower. I would call around and find the minimum score and what will be the requirements. My mortgage broker asked for 2 months of bank statements and 2 months of pay stubs.
Im sorry I printed out my Credit Report and sent it over to a Mortgage Broker who looked it over and told me if there would be an issue. I would make sure that I have several trade lines reporting positively for at least one year. I went and got a furniture bill and paid it off in one year, it doesn't matter if it is a 20$ a month payment. If you don't have traditional lines of credit they can also use utilities. I also applied for Orchard Bank, I know that it will only give you a small balance but it did the trick in helping to raise my score. It took me a couple of years because I had defaulted on student loans in which I had to rehab them for 9 months after that fiasco in 2010 I had to deal with the collections 2011. I monitored my FICO Score with Equifax it matches exactly what the Lender Pulled 648, Credit Karma 690 Lender Pull 695, Experian FAKO 667 Lender Pull 646. Please don't despair because all things take time.
@Anonymous wrote:
I am hoping to buy a home in the summer. We, DH and I have challenging credit, with his scores in the low 580's to 590's. mine are just a bit lower, TU today was 581, Ex 553 and exp 595. He has excellent employment history and I have had two jobs in four years, and have been at this job for 11 months... I have been actively working at getting collections removed, and will have that taken care of this month on my credit. Last April a landlord sued me and won for damages (she has sued every tenant she has ever had and wins every time but I didn't know this when I rented), it is marked as paid last April as well. I have a charge off that was settled and I have that paid off as of March21st after making monthly payments for one year. The collection company said it would show up on my credit as paid and a zero balance very soon. I have not made any late payments in 15 months, with my last payments late on a payday loan and they will not go for a GW deletion, though I have mailed the CEO directly s hoping that will get me somewhere. Annual income is about $100k combined but due to job locations we live separately and need to buy so we can all live into same house again. We will have about $9000 for down. I also have to bare my bad habits and share that I frequently over draw my account but haven't in one month since trying to correct these issues and also have automatic withdrawals for savings. Credit card utilization is at 62 percent at last update but should be between 20 and 30 percent after my payments are updated. My latest success bumped my scores 30+ points in twelve days, that included getting the small clAims judgment marked as paid and an ATT collection removed... Please someone just shoot straight with me, are my hopes too high?
There are a lot of moving parts here, but I'll throw my $0.02 in. And let me begin by apologizing if any of this comes off sounding like Dr Phil meets Suzie Orman And, all of this is easier said than done, of course.
First of all, your income by itself may put you in good shape to get your credit habits back on track- the "I frequently overdraw my account" part has really, really got to stop, regardless of being credit cards or debit cards... The fees alone will drag your cash flow down the drain. I would seriously recommend working on budgeting skills, from top to bottom. At ~100k income, renting, and planning on saving 9k by Summer, you should have no reason whatsoever to be overdrawing any accounts!!! If this is difficult, consider only carrying cash on you for several months...
That said, there are some other pieces that would help us to help you- what open accounts do you currently have? Credit cards, car notes, personal loans, etc. Which of them have late payments? How old are they, and how late were they? What is are the balances and what are the limits on them? Taking care of you revolving credit picture accounts for a huge chunk of both your FICO score and the rest of your financial health. Cleaning up your report is another big chunk, which it sounds like you're working on.
I guess my point is that a lender will look at how you manager your credit, and you may be in better shape to take care of that before considering a mortgage. It's not as fun to rent to be sure, but another year might save you a ton of money...
@Anonymous wrote:
There are a lot of moving parts here, but I'll throw my $0.02 in. And let me begin by apologizing if any of this comes off sounding like Dr Phil meets Suzie Orman And, all of this is easier said than done, of course.
First of all, your income by itself may put you in good shape to get your credit habits back on track- the "I frequently overdraw my account" part has really, really got to stop, regardless of being credit cards or debit cards... The fees alone will drag your cash flow down the drain. I would seriously recommend working on budgeting skills, from top to bottom. At ~100k income, renting, and planning on saving 9k by Summer, you should have no reason whatsoever to be overdrawing any accounts!!! If this is difficult, consider only carrying cash on you for several months...
That said, there are some other pieces that would help us to help you- what open accounts do you currently have? Credit cards, car notes, personal loans, etc. Which of them have late payments? How old are they, and how late were they? What is are the balances and what are the limits on them? Taking care of you revolving credit picture accounts for a huge chunk of both your FICO score and the rest of your financial health. Cleaning up your report is another big chunk, which it sounds like you're working on.
I guess my point is that a lender will look at how you manager your credit, and you may be in better shape to take care of that before considering a mortgage. It's not as fun to rent to be sure, but another year might save you a ton of money...
Living apart lends to us being in trouble - he frequently borrows money from me to make sure his payments are on time as we've been trying to build up our credit and I am solely responsible for our car insurances, our cell phone bills, saving ANY money, paying all credit card debts plus my rent, utiliies, etc. I work TWO JOBS and the second income is going to pay off Cap One this month. He lives in a home we are buying and will be selling this May to my stepson and netting $13000 so our down/closing will come from that. The mortgage is NOT reporting on my credit accounts and that's because it is not financed in my name - though I wish it would because that would help - zero lates over the life of the loan - but my husband's scores are way lower than mine and I think that's because of his debt to income - he has a new (used) truck, balance is $10010 and zero payments made but his scores were 40 points lower before getting financed so that increased his score...
I have 3 credit cards:
Orchard Bank: 0/300 - opened 3/12 - 0 lates
Cap One: 700/1000 opened 3/2009 - 0 lates
Wal-Mart: 0/150 - opened 12/2008 - 1 late, Sept. '09
Car payment: $305 - only 3 more and it's mine - one late payment Sept '09...
I have two checking accounts, should I move my direct deposit to the clean one at my credit union so that when they ask for bank records this will look better? It's been open for a couple of months....
The checking account is in perfect standing. To even apply I need two months of statments, but if I wait to apply in May, then I have 3 months of clean history on one account and three on the other but some over drafts this year, I think ten - but on two OCCASIONS- meaning I thought they had pushed everything else through, then they bounce six things because they run things through largest to smallest and bounce everything but one item... Just figured that out!