topic Re: how long to improve score in General Credit Topics

how long to improve score

Anonymous — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 21:54:41 GMT

I recently paid off all of my debt (collections and credit cards) other then my student loans which are deferred for the next 4 years? My credit score is a 535. How long will it take to get to a 580? I am trying to buy a house and this is the only thing stopping me. Thank you anyone.

Re: how long to improve score

Anonymous — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 22:18:01 GMT

I am brand new to this site, but have been working on my credit for 4 years. It seems that initially the score seems to jump and then it slows as it gets higher. this is evident in my wifes score as we just started working on it and it jumped almost to as good as mine very quickly and has since slowed.

Good luck

Re: how long to improve score

Anonymous — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 16:04:00 GMT

Hi uopskulgrl and welcome to the forums!

Good for you for pif'ing your cc's. That will raise your score considerably, depending on what your balances were on your cc's before you paid them off.

IMO, you should start working on getting the collections removed off your cr asap.
As they are paid, you can start writing GW(goodwill) letters.

Pose your questions about collections in the General Credit Issues of the forum.

There are many fine examples of GW letters. Use the search box and type in GW letters.

Good luck to you!

Re: how long to improve score

haulingthescoreup — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 22:47:47 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:

I recently paid off all of my debt (collections and credit cards) other then my student loans which are deferred for the next 4 years? My credit score is a 535. How long will it take to get to a 580? I am trying to buy a house and this is the only thing stopping me. Thank you anyone.

As Sylvia said, paying down your balances helps a lot. We call this improving your util. Util is short for utilization, meaning how much you owe on an account divided by the credit limit on that account.

I'm going to move your thread to General Credit Issues, as suggested. Please look at the Credit Education tab up at the top of the page, and then read Credit Scoring 101, at least the first main post, and you can then come back with more specific questions.

Credit Scoring 101