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First off I want to say thank you to these forums, they helped me alot! I started trying to improve my credit in May 2008, I was pretty much in the 400's except for TU which started at 548.
Right now TU is 578 and Eq is 576(up 100 pts).( last I was able to check EX was 540) I opened two $300.00 cards in May of 2008, now one has a credit limit of $450.00 and one is $375.00. My question on those is what should I keep the balance at? I have been keeping them at like $100 - $125, should it be lower? Unfortuntately one of my cards switched banks and now I have another account as of 12/8 and the original shows $0 balance closed good standing.
I have one collection account from Cap One. It was $1735.00, however I settled it (through my atty) for $750.00, had to otherwise they would have filed a judgement. However balance will not go to $0.
I also have this seventh avenue account, it was for $171.00, disputed it and called the company multiple times as I have no idea what this is, however, CA not on my credit repot offered me a settlement, I paid thinking it would be better to show a $0 balance but it still shows $33.00 and even though I have a letter stating zero balance, TU will not change it!
Other than that, I have a paid off car loan from five years ago, showing $0 balance but a couple of 30 day lates, tried everything to change that, nothing worked. I have three capital one accounts from six plus years ago, each one is around $2k, started at $300.00,but since they should come off in less than a year, I do not want to mess with them. The only difference is on my TU report it shows me as an auth user on my mom's discover card, not sure if that is helping me or not. I also have a $230.00 Verizon from 2007 because my daughter ran up the long distance and the wrote it off and put it right onto my credit, I disputed and it came off everyting except TU. They will not do PFD.
I have the opportunity to buy a house here under 40B in MA which is a program for buying like a $300-$400 house for like $170k. You have to have a certain income and go through a lottery approval process. The thing is is that my house could come up anytime from now to a year from now. I really do not want to miss the opportunity as I am a single mom and the opportunity for me to buy a new house here in MA under 200k would never happen again! The house is also in a rural area and I could apply for the rural usda loan.
Any suggestions on what else I can do to get my scores up to the 620's? And does anyone know if I could get a mortgage if my score is not yet 620, or what the score requirements are for the rural usda mortgage?
Also, not to make this long and drawn out, but I have a daughter going into college this year and I may have to take out the federal plus loan, not sure how much yet or if I would even get approved. Would that have a negative impact on my score.
Any help would be apprectiated :-)!
It's generally easy to get student loans, HOWEVER you really should have your daughter carry the loans. There is no sense in you holding large amounts of debt for her education. Better to put your own money towards your own retirement.
Student loans will start a credit history for her (if she doesn't have one already) so that by the time she graduates she'll have 4-5 years of age on her account which will really help her scores. She won't have to start paying on the loans until she graduates.