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Well, here goes...the good, the bad, and the ugly! I thought you might want to share in my journey as a single mom trying to buy a first house (a little pathetic in my late thirties, but better late than never).
I started my goal in February with the following eq 593 (now 646), tu 577(now 622), and ex 590(now 664*). All are FICO except the current experian that is from Experians freecreditreport.com. I plan to pull that through FICO. I have Score Watch and the TU (My Fico) Identity Theft watch.
I have a barrage of issues that some of you may identify with...
- Multiple defaulted student loans from years past that never seem to drop off no matter how old they are (I had them re-purchased in Dec 05 and are showing as a new account since then with no lates and perfect status), but the old ones are so damaging and they show new every time they were sold, etc. so 4 overall loans look like 12!!! Has anyone had luck with dealing with student loans? I tried to dispute some that I thought were inaccurate or duplicates, but it seemed to make it worse.
- Bankruptcy that is now 7 years old, but has 3 more years before it drops off.
- Old Collections - all but 3 were paid. Of the 3, 2 are minor balances (<$100) and the other was bigger. My lender said they would have to be dealt with, so like a dummy, I paid the highest one. I now know that it will appear as a current issue and despite the $0 balance, it will hurt my score. Stay tuned and I will report the damage as I expect it to hit any day... Has anyone had any experience with asking to pay past collections as a condition of escrow instead???
- Judgements/lein ...this part kills me. I have an Innocent Spouse status with the IRS (my ex was a real creep, which is a big reason I have all of these messes to begin with). However, the State acted on unpaid taxes only notifying the "primary" (my ex) and not me - something about their process says they don't have to, how convenient. While the IRS was giving me IS status, the State gave me 2 judgements and a tax lein. Now they are working on applying my IS status to the State. I really hope that they will remove the lein at that time, but I have no idea what to do to get those judgements removed. Since they are judgements, can they be reversed, removed, anything??? Will this take another lawyer? I would appreciate anyone's past experiences on this
- On the positive side I have 4 strong accounts with low/no balances and no lates ranging from 7-22 months old.
Well...welcome to my saga. I will keep you posted and I appreciate any helpful input you have
LER
Part of what I know increased my score is just understanding what balance for my main cc was being reported. Luckily, Capitol One seems to report the statement balance, which is easy for me to keep track of. I went on vacation at Xmas so the balance was high ($800 something for a $1000 limit) for the Jan statement. Once I paid it mostly off my score got way better. I have also received a limit increase to $1500. I noticed that although my limit went up I was dinged for my balance being up just slightly so I paid that down under %20 again and we will see what happens.
I have 4 current accounts all in perfect standing all between 7 and 22 mo old. The card above was the most recent and I also noticed a jump after it hit the 6 mo mark. Since 2 accounts carry a $0 bal (one a $5,500 limit and the other a bank line of credit for $750) and the 3rd is a student loan of around 5K, that one cc seems to carry a big impact on the change of my score.
PS...the collection agency called me on behalf of the state for the first time....well ever. I told them the Dept of Revenue who hired them know exactly my situation with the Innocent Spouse being in process. I then faxed the IS department for a status update and am waiting for a reply. This makes me really nervous! Give you an update soon I hope
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