Hello,
I am new here and happy to have found this place! 
I plan to sell my home this year and move to an apartment due to being recently widowed. I want to repair my credit so I can get approved for an apartment. I just got my credit score via Equifax and it is only 566! I am so upset by this and I don't know why it is that low...I know I have a high debt to credit ratio but will that alone make my score so low? Here are the basics from my report:
- My mortage is just a year and a half old as we just bought the house in late 2012. The debt to credit ratio on it is 98%. How does one lower that? I pay monthly and I always pay it on time and on our last home we owned for 9 years we never paid late.
- I do not have any Installment Accounts.
- I have 3 Revolving Accounts and my debt to credit ratio on those combined is: 59%, 60%, and 18%. Each of the three credit bureaus has a different ratio.
- I have two collection accounts, both of which are medical bills. I already paid one off. I plan to pay the other off this month.
- I have 4 Negatives and two of those are the two medical bills I mentioned above and two I am just the Authorized User on and I already had TransUnion delete them and I am just waiting now for Equifax to delete them. They were my husband's accounts and he is deceased and I was just the Authorized User and he paid late a few times on each, hence my reason for wanting them deleted.
I have several accounts still showing on my credit that are closed but paid off and some have been paid off for years. They were paid as agreed. One is from 1995!
What can I do to improve my score?
Thanks.
