Advice for Home Buying...plan to buy in 2015

[kjones2011]

Hello all,

I am working on getting my credit up to par by 2015 to prepare to buy a home.

My income is $43000, I work as an Staff Accountant. 

My student loan payments are around $300 a month

I have a car loan with monthly payments at $280 per month

My current credit score is 640. 

I lost my job during college in 2011 and had few late payments and some collection activity  My credit file is as follows

Two paid off charge off from 2011

One is for chase and the the other is for Victorias Secret. Both have been paid off in full

Two remaining collections for T-mobile and Jostens

Receivables Performance $126-in collections-Jan 2012

Credit Bureau of Fairabault $147 -in collections-Aug 2010

I have 3 credit cards, Walmart, Capital 1 Platinum and Best Buy.

Walmart is 4 years old  i have had  great payment history for the last two years  and 2 credit limit increasees but i have 2 late payments from 2010,

Capital one is 1 1/2 years old great payment history and 3 credit limit increases.

Best buy is 6 months old (i bought a laptop) I plan to pay it off this month since i only have $165 left over

[edcampbell613]

Sounds like you might be close now. Some lenders can use non-traditional credit if you dont have anyother credit on your bureau, non traditional credit can be rental, cell phones, auto insurance regular payments. Hope this helps

[bearygodmother]

Pay off the collections ASAP!!!  Close any credit card accounts you do not plan on using long term - however three open accounts isn't too bad in the grand scheme of things.  Pay down your credit card balances as much as you can - underwriting will consider how much balance you have when compared to your limit.  The big key is to keep making your payments on time.  Doing these three things will help increase your credit score and improve your rate.  Don't forget to save for your down payments as well!!  Good luck!!!

[kjones2011]

Hello all,

Me and my fiance plan to get married around2/2015 and hope to buy a home that summer.  Our situation is little difficult since we both have credit issues.

Me:

Income $43000

Student Loan $40000 ($300 monthly payment)

Car Loan $1300 ($280 monthly paments

2 charge offs from 2011 but paid off on 2012

2 account in collections from 2012

3 credit cards on time payment history 2 years straight

640 Credit score from experian

Fiance:

Income $30,990

Multiple collections from medical bills from 2007  ( he messed up  his knee when he was young and had to have surgery and theraphy)

1 Repo from 2009

Car Loan ($490 per month)

Student Loans $10000 ($50 per month)

a few charge off on credit from 2007

589 Credit Score

I have added him on to my credit cards as an authorized user hoping it will help him build some type revolving credit and increase his score.

We have been going back and forth with credit repair and saving for a down payment and planning for a wedding,...but our main concern is our finances and credit  we want to get started on the right foot .

Please Help  

[HoldingOntoHope]

Welcome to the forums. You have come across what is (in my opinion) one of the best places on the internet to educate yourself and turn things around. The first thing I would suggest is to visit the general credit topics and rebuilding your credit  forums and read all of the sticky posts at the top. That will give you some education on what you are dealing with. Then you will want to print both of your credit reports from all three bureaus so you can see exactly where you are starting from. It doesn't matter where you get the reports from because at the moment you are concerned with content and not scores.

If you have not pulled your reports directly from the bureaus at annualcreditreport.com then go there and get them because you will get the most accurate and detailed information. Don't buy into their offers for scores or additional monitoring. Once you know what you are dealing with then the Rebuilding your Credit forum will be your best friend. They will teach you what you can do to clean up some of the damage in the form of Pay for Deletes and Goodwill letters.

The most important thing is to avoid any further credit missteps. Be ON TIME with all payments ALL the time in the future. Time itself is a great healer of credit mistakes. Good luck in your journey and we hope to see you asking questions and contributing to the community support and knowledge,

[evil_ducky]

Changes to certain negative information including paying collections can reset the clock on the age of the collection, causing your credit scores to drop and your collection to stay on your reports longer. Whether or not they're paid off doesn't factor into your score, I believe. If they exist, they affect it. However, some LOs (loan officers) will request that you pay off old debts as part of the approval process, and a number of people have had bad experiences with following this advice and consequently being locked out of better rates, or even a mortgage itself.

It is also true that underwriting will consider your available credit in terms of risk management, e.g. might you be able to run up large balances and bury yourself in debt you can't pay, but closing accounts is rarely a good idea. Your goal right now is to bring your credit score up and clean up your reports as much as you can, and closing accounts can also cause your score to drop by increasing overall utilization.

While this board can give you more specific advice in regards to how best to qualify for a mortgage, if you're looking to put in some work on maximizing your score, the Rebuilding Your Credit forum has a wealth of information on how best to go about that.

Good luck!!

[notfancy]

I just noticed you posted the same thing across several parts of the forum here. I think that if the posts get merged, you'll find bits and pieces of good advice. I hope we can help you and your fiancee meet your goals!

[notfancy]

Can a mod merge these posts? http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Mortgage-Loans/Advice-for-Home-Buying-plan-to-buy-in-2015/m-p/276659...