Rebuilding Scores - No Idea What to Do!

[Anne1208]

Hey! So my scores are all ok - 699-734 ish i think....and my mortgage scores are all much higher.  I have LOTS of student loans i pay on time but theyre not going anywhere, so all i have to work with is my credit cards (balance was $20,000 in August 2013, almost 100% utilization, I am now down to $11,000.....My myFico estimator tool says all my scores will go up to 815-830ish if i pay those down on time every month for two years. So i have no plan for myself except just paying the student loans monthly on time and continuing to pay extra to credit cards (i stick w $500 a month over all cards) to let my own score keep going up.

ON THE OTHER HAND, there is my husband. Sigh....we want to buy a house and im so lost about what we/he can do to get his score up. In January he had four collections (3 medical, five years old, and 1 cable bill from years earlier that just popped up), also a couple 30 day lates from 2009 (what a fun year for him, right?) so his score in fall was 640's and plummeted to 540 in January.He has no debt otherwise, had no loans, no credit cards for many years...i.e., his current credit consisted of no positive credit activity, only a few collections. So in january i made him pay off the last $4000 on the medical bills and the cable bill CA and open a secured credit card. By april he was up to 591. He only does the fico stuff 4 times a year (i keep trying to get him to change to the monthly for awhile), and im on pins and needles waiting to see what has happened to his score when the next update comes out in July.

When we use the myfico estimator thing on HIS, it basically gives him one option - "pay credit card on time for 24 months" and it shows it going from 591 to 630...IN TWO YEARS. **bleep**?!? We dont know what else to do. We asked time warner to remove the collection notation and they won't.  He makes six figures a year and doesnt need a loan on anything, doesnt WANT more creidt cards. Other than begging the orthopaedic surgeon to remove the 3 medical colelctions, we are lost. We'd like to get a house in a year but i dont see it happening, which stinks bc we will have a lot of money saved up for one by then. his mortgage score for april, 2015 is like, 660, but i dont know that i trust those.

WHAT TO DO?!?! the other thing is people say to add a store card, but we are fearful if he tries to apply for ANY nonsecured card with a 600ish score, that he will get denied and his score will go down. if we cant get the doctor to remove the medical collections, they will all come off in July, 2017....i suppose we can wait that long for a house, but wow that is a long time.

[Anonymous]

Besides goodwill letters for the medical collections and cable bill since they are all paid, he needs 3 credit cards.

It's better to get bank issued credit cards than store cards.

You can add him as a AU to your card.

CapitalOne has a pre qualifier on their site that is reliable and they are an easier co to get credit with.

Even if he doesn't need credit, he could charge basic things like gas etc and pay before the statement cuts to improve his credit and get cli.

Having at least 3 cards all showing a zero balance except one which reports under 9 % utilization is the best method to rebuild from his loss while waiting on baddies to fall off

[Anonymous]

Has he thought about paying your CC's off, getting the home in your name. Then when his scores rise add him to the mortgage? 

[Anonymous]

But if you get the mortgage only under your name they can only use your debt to income to determine the the maximum mortgage you will be eligible for.

[Anonymous]

True.

[Anne1208]

I am paying my credit cards off through a Debt Management Plan - - negotiated lower interest rates and i pay it down accoridng to a plan. It's bene great for my credit and ive been able to pay down cards faster, but i can no longer use the cards which means i also can no longer add an authorized user. This has all worked greta and only made my credit go up, and itll all be paid up in two more years.

BUT i have a LOT of student loans and make less than half what my husband does. What we can qualify for under my Debt+income alone is like, $100,000.  What we can qualify for under his income and NO debt alone is like, $425,000.  Not that we are going to go that high, but we also dont want to buy a $100k house that doesn fit our needs.

So in other words, we need to qualify under his name, with his total lack of debt, and his salary, and his scores arent great right now. We just need ways to legitimately raise his score!

[Anonymous]

I would work on getting some credit established in his name like I stated above to raise his score.

[Anne1208]

Yeah i think you are right - the one card isn't enough and he probably needs to add a couple more sooner rather than later. We are meeting with a mortgage lady on July 1 to talk in hypotheticals about what they think the issues are. Maybe we can get the ball rolling on those cards at that time.

[StartingOver10]

Check the mortgage forum here so you have a handle on what is needed.

Read the stickies. Lots of info for you and your husband

[Anonymous]

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@Anne1208 wrote:

Yeah i think you are right - the one card isn't enough and he probably needs to add a couple more sooner rather than later. We are meeting with a mortgage lady on July 1 to talk in hypotheticals about what they think the issues are. Maybe we can get the ball rolling on those cards at that time.

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Add two more cards. He does not have to use them if he does not want to, but adding them will raise his scores faster.