How long to recover 23 points?

[LittleCat]

I have been diligently cleaning up my credit and had several medical collections. I PFD'd all 3, with 1 deleting unpon my payment(yep, have it in writing) 1 paid with the OC and 1 that I just got frustrated and paid it after several PDF's to them were denied(for $120!)

The one I paid was only about 8 monthes old, but upon updating it to 'paid' I lost 23 points. I knew this would happen when I paid it, but accept it because I want to be in a good position to refi my car and rent an apartment-and the loan lady at the bank said that since they do a manual review having it be 'paid' will be in my favor.

So my question is how long does it take to recover from this 'fresh ding?'

[RobertEG]

Two main factors will influence how rapidly you can expect FICO score increases.  The first is priior late payments.  These hit hard, and go away slowly, so if you have prior lates that are hurting your score, you can only expect about one point again a month as they age and you have no further lates.  The bigger one, and the one that can give you immediate and high increases, is getting your %util down.  First is to get it below 50%.  As you approach 10%, you will see a big increase.  Just sitting on what you now have wont do much unless you pay your debt down. Credit scores remember prior lates for 7 years, but dont remember prior % util at all.