Hi dopeyfanatic. Welcome to the myFICO Forums! 
@Anonymous wrote:Last month we had our credit checked to see what we needed to do to buy a house. Husband's credit was 538. He has one late payment on there from January which I was told will roll off at one year (not completely but drastically lessen how much his score is affected). He has, as of now, four cards. One already reported closed, the other three say open. In reality only one is open even though the other two say they are. When she pulled his credit he was using some where between $2000 and $2100 of his $2300 credit limit. He has our car loan in his name...four years and never late. I want to get him up to 620, but hopefully 640. Is it possible? One of our cards was reporting twice, we believe from when his card was stolen and they changed acct numbers. That old acct didn't show as active, late, closed...nothing, but it did show a nearly maxed balance. Since our credit was pulled I have paid one of the cards to below 20%, but it is one of the closed cards and even if I only pay minimum it will be paid off before we apply, and I assume by then will reflect as closed. One of our other cards that is closed is in pre-collections. I don't know why as we haven't been late, I assume just because they closed it and want to be done? I plan on paying that off by next month so it doesn't go into collections. I forgot to mention that he hasn't used his cards in probably three years. We used it yesterday to help out with his length of credit because he has had the card for 6years or so. I don't know what to do now. Should I pay the other two cards to a point where I can revert to barely over minimum payments so they will possibly still reflect as open or just pay them off? It means he has one credit card with a $500 limit. I added him as an authorized user on my Target card which is in perfect standing, but they said it;s up to the credit agency if they want to use that info on his correct since he isn't an actual joint holder. I want to wait to pull my score again until there has been a chance for more things to help it. I'm at a total loss and so stressed out that this won't happen....please help me!
- The pain of the 30 day late will lessen over time, but will remain on your DH's credit report for 7 years. Unless, the lender is willing to agree to a goodwill adjustment, removing the 30 day late. If not, mortgage lenders like to see a full year of on time payments before granting a loan.
- Your DH has 3 closed (with balances) revolving accounts, and 1 open (with balance) revolving account. His reported utilization is in the ballpark of 90% (maxed out). Like lates, High utilization is a score killer! But it's also the 'easiest' thing to fix of the things that negatively impact your score. Once the closed accounts are paid in full, they'll cease to be calculated in your utilization ratio. The one open account will continue to be counted in utilization, so you'll want to make certain that you get the balance really low (below 10% of the credit line) for that one.
- Unfortunately, Target doesn't report authorized user accounts to the CRAs. Do you have a major bank card, with long & clean history that you can add him as an AU?
When do you plan on apping for a mortgage? Do you have any other derogs (collections, public records, etc...)?