@artanis50 wrote:Yes, I understand it's possible to search for information. I've already done that. Obviously, I haven't found something that's helpful, which is why I created my own post.
Unfortunately sometimes we get short replies when it comes to truly complicated calculations (which we don't understand more than anecdotally): it's challenging enough to make a guess when we're talking clean files, mixed files like yours and mine are incredibly difficult to estimate. The brevity of the response wasn't anything more than that in my estimation, wasn't intentioned to be rude or anything of the sort.
You might see a boost when your old derogatory falls off in April (could be first of the month, I'm not an expert on specific exclusion dates honestly) especially in the scores relating to a mortgage which you intimate you care most about. It depends how it's counted, the three year old collection might be similar in which case you may not get much (as derog type tends to get scored logarithmically, your first collection / tax lien / late / whatever hurts the most, your second hurts less, the third less than the second, and so on ad naseum... as an example a second tax lien in my case moved one of my mortgage scores an absurdly small amount: 5 points).
That said the 60 day recent late is the score killer currently; we'd need a pretty full accounting to make any sort of reasonable estimation of when you might hit 700 on a mortgage score, and even then it would be a swag.
My own experience with a 60 day late, a collection, and a tax lien from 2010, on a particular mortgage score (EQ Beacon 5.0) I've established 2 years of pristine positive history and I only got to roughly 680 (before I did something stupid which I can get airstruck but haven't yet), which might get me to 700 depending how it's factored.
That said, one of the things that was hurting me was I was a no-file as far as positive tradelines were concerned, so I was starting out at less than zero whereas it sounds like you have positive history stretching back non-trivially: that is a big plus in your favor in terms of score recovery as some part of my own journey has been simply building up the payment history at all while aging derogatories.
I would absolutely keep on with the GW letters though Cap 1 is notoriously difficult to get any traction on from reports here.
I have one account (mortgage) with a 60-day late and a couple of 30-day lates (knocked me down into the high 500s). Long and complicated story about why they happened, but it took approximately 2-1/2 to 3 years to get back above the 720 level. While I did not apply for a mortgage I was able to secure a motorcycle and auto loan along with a couple of CCs (I think they helped push me over the 700 mark).
