I have been lurking on these boards since April of 2012. I spent hours reading everyones stories and decided it was time to start trying to clean up my own credit. In 2004 our youngest son was diagnosed with Autism and we have spent the better part of the last ten years dealing with a huge amount of medical debt along with moving 5 times across state lines so between the two credit took a back seat to everything else. Back in April 2012 my scores were in the mid to low 500's across the board. Over the years I had paid off most of my baddies, but this was before I knew you could ask for a PFD so my only option was to GW. I tried a couple rounds and was only able to get Credit One to delete something that was almost aged off but I was happy to see it go. My score grew a little, and I was able to get a terrible interest rate on an auto loan but it was great for rebuilding. My score grew a little more and for the first time in years I was above 600 on all three bureaus. I applied for and got a capital one credit card with a very low limit. Scores grew a little more with Equifax getting to about 640. I applied for a Discover IT and got it. I used the checkout trick and got a couple store cards and bought some furniture and got a line of credit. In June of 13 I got 2nd auto loan at a much better rate then I have ever gotten. In January 2014 my scores were 645 Experian, 614 Equifax and 623 TU and I thought if I get my utilization down I think I might be able to get to 640...meaning FHA... I had 24 months of nearly perfect payments except for a 30 day late on my Wells Fargo Auto loan from January of 2013 that I couldn't figure out. I started another round of GW's for old baddies and was able to get a couple old c/o credit cards to delete, along with a couple old medical bills. I paid my utilization down to almost nothing and reached out to Wells Fargo to inquire on the 30 day late. On Monday I was told that my 30 day late would be removed as apparently there was some glitch in their system where they double charged me in December and then credited me in January which made my account look like it wasn't paid. My scores today are 689 Experian, 659 Equifax and 656 T/U and the Wells Fargo 30 day late isn't off yet and my utilization is currently sitting on a JCrew store card. By this time next week the 30 day late should be off and my credit report should say I only have $26 chared to one Capital Once card while I have almost $6000 in revolving credit.
I was pre-approved for an FHA loan as of a month ago and my LO is working to switch it to Conventional if I can get my mid score to 680 and we signed our contract for a house last week! The sellers don't have a new house yet so luckily we have until 5/2 before we close...plenty of time to get my scores even higher.
My reason for this post is to just say thank you. We have rented our entire adult lives and are pretty excited about our future. So thank you to everyone who has ever posted a best practice, a hint, a sample letter, a note of encouragement, etc. I know that this process can be very discouraging but if you keep at it...I promise it pays off.
