can you get approved for a mortgage with one open credit card?

[alyssamarie]

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@fot1 wrote:

One card isn't going to be enough to re-establibe credit post BK. They are gonna want to see atleast 3 open tradeline for a year.

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she's had several tradelines open (just not credit cards) for longer than a year since the BK (stated above), so hopefully that will be enough to help. I guess there's not a lot more to do but wait and find out. 

Do either of you think she should try to open up another secured card? She has capital one now and all the other cards I've seen online seem pretty bad (high anual fee, high deposit, etc.). I might suggest that she try to open a secured card with a credit union, but I don't want to add too many new things to her report if it's not going to help. She wants to buy as soon as possible, and their lease ends in July so that would be ideal.

[fot1]

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@alyssamarie wrote:

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@fot1 wrote:

One card isn't going to be enough to re-establish credit post BK. They are gonna want to see atleast 3 open tradeline for a year.

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she's had several tradelines open (just not credit cards) for longer than a year since the BK (stated above), so hopefully that will be enough to help. I guess there's not a lot more to do but wait and find out. 

Do either of you think she should try to open up another secured card? She has capital one now and all the other cards I've seen online seem pretty bad (high annual fee, high deposit, etc.). I might suggest that she try to open a secured card with a credit union, but I don't want to add too many new things to her report if it's not going to help. She wants to buy as soon as possible, and their lease ends in July so that would be ideal.

Ch. 7 BK filed 09/2010, updated 01/2011

-Target credit card opened 09/2007, closed 10/2010 with the BK, all payments were on time

-Medical collection for $130 opened 09/2008 and paid 12/2008, will be removed 01/2015

-2 installment accounts with Aaron's (furniture)

opened 06/2010 for $3,515, paid as agreed $146 per month for 24 months, date closed 05/2012

and one opened 08/2010 for $969 paid as agreed for $49 a month for 24 months, date closed 08/2011

-a joint installment account unsecured loan for $6,500 opened 12/2008

status: closed due to refinance, $181 per month for 60 months, closed 08/2009, no late payments

-a Belk store card open from 02/2008 to 10/2010, no late payments

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I am not sure an UW will consider two accounts opened a month or three  before filing BK as re-establishing credit, even though the payments were made past the BK  .. But I will let others chime in on that.

If she is trying to get into a house in July then you are looking at a 30-45 day window to get your scores up in time. I would not add any new accounts as they will most likely drop the score with either the inquiry or just the AAoA. My suggestion would be to try like crazy to get the medical Collections off. GW letters and phone calls.

[alyssamarie]

Good advice about the GW letter, I'll see what she can do about that. I didn't really think much about it just because it was before the bankruptcy, but it's still on her report so I'm assuming it's still affecting her score somewhat. Any idea how much it could be affecting her score since it's pretty old? Either way, always better to get it off if possible! 

[fot1]

The older the collections the less they score.. but they still hold the score down some.. It could be a 10-20 points swing per item. No way of knowing.. You only list two credit scores for you mom..  I assume she got those with the secured card? I would then find out the third score.  Also letting  a very small less then %9 balance show on her credit card should give the best score, better then zero balance would.

[alyssamarie]

The scores came from an online mortgage company, it listed all three but under EX it listed "no score." She's planning on buying her scores in about 6 months to see if the secured card has helped any!

[stellar]

I'm curious to know what happened.  Did she get a mortgage?

[alyssamarie]

Yep, she closed on the house last month! She started with the secured capital one card with a $200 l8mit, paid it off in full multiple times a month and they bumped her limit up to $500 after a few months. Then she got approved for a Walmart store card (which also got an auto cli), and used the shopping cart trick to get a Victoria's Secret card as well. By the tone she applied in September the scores they pulled for her were in the 670s or 80s. I also added her as an AU on 2 of my cards to help with age of accounts.

Honestly I was really surprised that it happened so quickly!

[alyssamarie]

On my phone so sorry about the typos!