@Anonymous wrote:I have been on credit repairing mission for the past 6 months as I am trying to prepare myself to purchase a home by the end of the year. I joined this site, read all the blogs, learned a lot, thought I was moving in the right direction as all of my scores on Myfico.com have improved a lot over the past 5 months. My score's on here read TU-654 EX-645 EQ-640, so I thought what the hell, I will go talk to a mortgage broker and see where I am (terrible mistake). My actual scores were TU-602 EX-598 EQ-619. I have paid off student loans, had accounts deleted, done everything I have read and been told to do and have seen 50+ point increases across the board. At this point I have no clue what is left and how long it will be untill I can finally get approved to purchase a home. I make good money, 10%DTI, no credit card debt as it is PIF monthly. Any suggestions on how to raise these scores before I drive myself insane?
1. First let me say, by way of preface, that homeowning isn't the unmixed joy it's made out to be. It's a lot of responsibility and expense. If something breaks down you can't call the landlord or move, you have to fix it, even if you can't afford to fix it. And nowadays it's relatively easy to get into a mortgage you can't actually afford to pay back. In the old days the banks cared whether you paid them back; nowadays they package and securitize the mortgages so a defaulting homeowner is someone else's problem, not theirs. So don't assume because you can get the mortgage, you can afford it.
2. Secondly, also by way of preface, I would stay away from mortgage brokers if I were you. Deal directly with credit unions or banks. And don't bother asking them for advice. 9 times out of 10 you'll get wrong advice.
3. Thirdly, by way of actually trying to answer your question, let me say that you've given us almost no information about what's in your credit reports, so it's impossible to suggest what you might do to improve them. I would want to know:
(a) what negatives there are and how old they are
(b) how many open revolving accounts, and what are limits and balances
(c) any open installment loans
(d) what negative factors FICO is telling you
(e) the age of your revolving accounts
(f) recent inquiries and new accounts
Good questions above. Of all of them, the one on what negatives gets my most attention, because even though you've payed things, had items deleted and so on, that was all you said. I can't help but think that with those scores, something or things are still weighing the score down.
Deoending on what it is, that will dictate your next moves to try to improve.
Deoending on what it is, that will dictate your next moves to try to improve.
@Anonymous wrote:The bulk of my credit is student loans, I have 2 credit cards, each with 1k limits that are paid off monthly. My loans were in default but rehabbed and picked up 4 months ago with Navient and deleted from my CR. 1 of my cards is 2 years old, the other I opened about 3 months ago ( secured line) to help boost my scores. I did pull a 3B, my mortgage scores listed are still off from my actual scores by about 10-14 points each. I have 2 collections accounts from 2012 ( college utilities) that have been paid years ago but still show up.........thats it.
OK so you can improve your scores further by:
1. Making sure 1 of the 2 credit cards reports a zero balance when the statement cuts.
2. Making sure the other card reports some small balance, but less than 10% of the limit.
3. Asking the bureaus to verify the remaining negatives. You can do this yourself or through an agency.
4. Adding one more credit card, probably a Capital One Platinum or Barclay Rewards card. If you do go up to 3 cards, you should maintain 2 at zero balance on statement.
If you do these things your scores will likely go up.
Then there might be other things to do, such as getting a credit union savings account and a share secured loan against it, but do the above things for now.