Best Approach to raise score 20 points in 60 days

[leegreen]

Hello All. I have been reading this forum for several weeks and need some advice. I am trying to get repairs done on my home but have no equity. The only lender I can find in my area with an unsecured loan with terms I can afford only wants to give me half. I asked how much my score would need to increase for full approval and was told around 20 points. So here is the best picture I can give right now.

Baddies: June 2012 30 day on auto loan (account PIF)

Jan 2012 30 day on 3 CC acounts (all PIF open(3 store and one CapOne)

Jan 2012-Feb 2012 30 and 60 day one one CC account (PIF and open store)

Feb 2012 90 day on Student Loan(should have been in deferment)

Apr 2012 paid off collection from VA overpayment

CC info current report (non reported updates):

NFCU cRewards 1400/2000 (1400/5000)

NFCU nRewards 2800/4000 (2800/9000)

CapOne 510/750 (4/750)(set up netflix and autoPIF)

Lowes 185/700 (can easily PIF)

Zales 0/800 

Firestone 0/1000

Jared 416/5100 (0/5100)

AAoA 3/11 oldest 9/4

Installment:

NFCU Signature  236/mo for 60 mo (36 old)

WFHM VA Mortgage 940/mo for 360 mo (13m old)

Student loans in deferment

Unreported Car loan 410/mo for 72 (1m old) (old car totaled)

So I have composed and mailed GW letters to all badies and obviously made changes to credit lines should I get my 20 points or do I need to do more?

[user5387]

The 60/90 lates I expect are still biting you pretty hard.  Since GW letters aren't guaranteed, it's hard to say how far you can go in this area.

You can do some research on the effect of lates, for example by this Google search:

   site:myfico.com effect 60 day lates

For utilization, I'd recommend clearing out the non-NFCU cards.  Even without this, it looks like you've made a major dent in the utilization area, especially with increased NFCU CLs.

You might also try to get a handle on which scoring model the lender is using, and see if you can get an update on your score at some point.

[leegreen]

Thank you for your response. As you can see the CC util is close to what you said (still waiting for report to update). I did the search you recommended and read and basically gathered that the GW letters are my best hope other than waiting 5.25 years.  I guess I will keep plugging on in the meantime and garden the cards. If anybody else has any suggestions please let me know.

BTW my current lender provided scores are 635(TU) 651(EQ) 671(EX)

[user5387]

A couple more comments.

1.  If you clear out revolving utilization entirely, and move it to installment, you may see a score boost, because the two types of utilization are scored differently.  I don't know how practical this is.

2.  There are hundreds of posts here about the wide diversity of scoring models, and how people are surprised by the resulting scores.  If I was in your position, I'd try to get a handle on this angle.

[leegreen]

Thank you for the suggestions. As to your first comment. I think it would not be practical except to lower my score. My NFCU cards both have interest rates between 15 and 16 percent. I am not seeeing many places that will issue a signature loan to somebody with my credit for less. Plus DW has higher rate cards, if I did get them I don't know if I could stomach paying off 15% cards when DW has 25% cards...

I am looking into different scoreing models...

I have had 3 lenders on the phone tell me to dispute their badies when I was asking about goodwill, is this normal? Does your credit file have problems when you are disputing things?

The badies in question are the collection, the latest 30 day and the 90 day.

The collection was with VA phone operator bascially implied that they are not good at verifying paid collections on time.

The 30 day I think I have little chance at considering I paid it at 32 days...

The 90 day was a student loan that was supposed to be under deferment at the time.

*edited spelling*