topic Re: Seeking advice on improving credit + handling rental history!! in Rebuilding Your Credit

Seeking advice on improving credit + handling rental history!!

Anonymous — Mon, 21 Aug 2017 12:58:49 GMT

Hello really helpful people—

Right now, I am in the beginning stages of attempting to slog through my mess of a credit situation. :-/ I am actually (yes, seriously) a very frugal person, and had a great credit score/situation up until around late 2012. Due to some medical bills which I was unable to cover any other way, I was carrying balances on 2 credit cards—which I *hated*, and was actively working to pay down.

Then I unexpectedly lost my job, and when I couldn’t pay my bills at all, everything financially started to go into free fall. It was at this point that—totally drowning and overwhelmed, plus still dealing daily with the above medical (chronic pain) issues—I’m plenty ashamed to admit that I basically didn’t pay what I couldn’t pay, ignored bills piling up, eventually ignored creditors, etc etc. This whole situation eventually resulted in losing 2 apartment leases in 2 years.

Okay, so I am now finally trying to face and fix this mess… I have a very stable job now, and have been gratefully saving more than 50% of my income each month for over a year. So I have a little bit of a cushion to work with finally, but want to make absolutely sure that I am allocating this money in the smartest way possible.

My long term goal is, of course, to pay everything off. My much shorter term goal is to be able to (finally) lease an apartment!!! This is where I know things get tricky. I owe back rent to both of the apts mentioned above—though only one of those (the lesser amt) is showing up on my recently pulled credit reports. In addition (and please bear with me if this sounds ridiculously stupid), I’m realizing that I’m not even actually sure if either of these involved an official eviction. My credit report shows up clean for evictions, but as far as I understand, this may not necessarily mean anything.

I am very anxious to move as soon as I can—I do have the ongoing rent money now, plus the ability to pay extra deposit, etc if someone were potentially willing to negotiate alternative terms in light of my crappy credit/rental history. I know that this is still unlikely, so I'm definitely trying to clean up everything I am able, as quickly as I can (though yes, I'm unfortunately very aware that this is no “quick” process here).

After attempting lots of learning/digging for info on my own, I was so incredibly relieved to come across this forum. If anyone might have a few min to look over this and share some insight or advice, I would be EXTREMELY grateful.

Thank you in advance!!!!!

-----------

Credit card:
Capital One / Date opened: 08/03/2017 / Balance = $0 Credit Limit = $200

Closed:
*ACS/JP Morgan Chase student loan: Day 120 (04/2012) / Date closed: 11/30/2012 / Balance: $0 / High balance: $8,034 / Past due: $0 (Equifax), $1,260 (Experian)
*AES/BHEA student loan: Day 120 (09/2012) / Date closed: 12/21/2012 / Balance: $0 / High balance: $1,560
*AES/BHEA student loan: Day 90 (04/2012) / Date closed: 07/16/2012 / Balance: $0 / High balance: $683

Collections:
*American Student Assistance student loan: Date closed: 03/31/2013 / Balance: $11,277 / High balance: $7,343
*Fidelity Creditors (Apt lease): Placed for collection: 09/22/2014 / Balance: $950 / Original amount: $558
*IC System Collections (T-Mobile): Placed for collection: 11/16/2016 / Balance: $254

Chargeoffs:
*Bank of America cc: Max delinquency of 120 days (08/2013 &10/2013) / Date closed: 06/21/2013 / High balance of $3,583 (02/2015-07/2017) / Original chargeoff: $2,215
*Bank of America cc: Max delinquency of 120 days (11/2013 & 01/2014) / Date closed: 09/05/2013 / High balance of $1,698 (02/2015 to 07/2017) / Original chargeoff: $994
*Discover cc: Account paid in full (09/30/2015); was a chargeoff

Experian: 510
Equifax: 531
TransUnion: 499

Re: Seeking advice on improving credit + handling rental history!!

Anonymous — Mon, 21 Aug 2017 12:57:44 GMT

Forgot to add that I just recently bit the bullet (I *hate* credit cards!!) and opened a secured card in order to try and get that positive payment history rolling...

Re: Seeking advice on improving credit + handling rental history!!

medicgrrl — Mon, 21 Aug 2017 13:48:20 GMT

I would go over to the student loan forum to get additional information on how to take care of those. There may be a way to rehab them and have the derogatory information deleted down the road.

If you have the money, start working on a pay for delete on the collection accounts. Have you checked the SOL for your state?

The CO's are difficult to get deleted, but paying them will still help your scores if they're included in your utilization.

My advice is to work on what's still within the SOL first before you end up with judgements. Work on the student loans now also since you can probably bring those current. Last, work on the accounts outside of the SOL.

Also, for best scoring, you'll want 3 revolving accounts and 1 installment. The student loans will count towards the installment, but I would consider 2 additional cards in the near future.

Re: Seeking advice on improving credit + handling rental history!!

Anonymous — Mon, 21 Aug 2017 21:09:17 GMT

No reason to HATE CCs they are tools, they don't DO anything on their own, they serve the human being handling them...

They don't create debt or bad habits
They don't miss payments on themselves
They don't pull themselves out and buy ish w/o a plan of payback

Just like there is no reason to HATE having a 🔪 in one's kitchen
The 🔪 is a useful tool, it takes human ACTIONS to turn it into something else.

Those CCs will sit in one's pocket and do as they are TOLD it's the owner that has to Captain the Ship and not DO anything silly....no reason to be afraid to have a CC nor a 🔪 in the house, unless someone loses their DARN mind😨

Re: Seeking advice on improving credit + handling rental history!!

Anonymous — Tue, 22 Aug 2017 02:20:04 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
No reason to HATE CCs they are tools, they don't DO anything on their own, they serve the human being handling them...

They don't create debt or bad habits
They don't miss payments on themselves
They don't pull themselves out and buy ish w/o a plan of payback

Just like there is no reason to HATE having a 🔪 in one's kitchen
The 🔪 is a useful tool, it takes human ACTIONS to turn it into something else.

Those CCs will sit in one's pocket and do as they are TOLD it's the owner that has to Captain the Ship and not DO anything silly....no reason to be afraid to have a CC nor a 🔪 in the house, unless someone loses their DARN mind😨

lol, touche.

Re: Seeking advice on improving credit + handling rental history!!

Anonymous — Tue, 22 Aug 2017 02:44:41 GMT

@medicgrrl wrote:
I would go over to the student loan forum to get additional information on how to take care of those. There may be a way to rehab them and have the derogatory information deleted down the road.

If you have the money, start working on a pay for delete on the collection accounts. Have you checked the SOL for your state?

The CO's are difficult to get deleted, but paying them will still help your scores if they're included in your utilization.

My advice is to work on what's still within the SOL first before you end up with judgements. Work on the student loans now also since you can probably bring those current. Last, work on the accounts outside of the SOL.

Also, for best scoring, you'll want 3 revolving accounts and 1 installment. The student loans will count towards the installment, but I would consider 2 additional cards in the near future.

Thank you for the info!

The statute of limitations in CA is 4 years...though I'm still pretty foggy on where that 4 years starts (date of last payment received? date closed? etc). Unfortunately, I've run across different sources quoting different answers.

On the chargeoffs... I do have one single account (Discover cc) that was a chargeoff, but was finally "paid in full" on 09/30/2015. I think I remember reading that paying these doesn't necessarily have any positive effect on your credit report/score. Is this true, and is there any way at all to make something useful out of it?

One other question: do you know if an auto loan marked "closed" fails to contribute to boosting credit report/score? I had an auto loan (2006-2011) with an absolutely perfect record, and which even got paid off early. (yay pre-financial crisis ) I would have thought (hoped?) that at least *that* would be a positive mark...but apparently not, if it's closed? What the heck?

Thanks again...

Re: Seeking advice on improving credit + handling rental history!!

medicgrrl — Tue, 22 Aug 2017 14:00:09 GMT

Typically the DOFD is used to determine the SOL. Are the BoA accounts credit cards? Paying revolving accounts will typically help a score because they are factored into utilization. Sometimes the utilization ends up over 100% so paying them can make a big difference.

The auto loan helps your scores because of it's age and payment history, but having an open installment loan will add some more points, especially as it's paid down.

Re: Seeking advice on improving credit + handling rental history!!

Anonymous — Wed, 23 Aug 2017 04:25:22 GMT

Yes, both of the BoA were credit cards.

As they're now closed, though (not to mention charged off), they don't still count as revolving accounts, do they?

Re: Seeking advice on improving credit + handling rental history!!

medicgrrl — Wed, 23 Aug 2017 04:35:34 GMT

They do count when it comes to your utilization. Does the credit report you pulled include them in the utilization?

Re: Seeking advice on improving credit + handling rental history!!

Anonymous — Wed, 23 Aug 2017 06:50:59 GMT

I can't believe I spent this whole time digging, and am still coming back without an answer...

I understand what you mean by 'utilization', but could you tell me exactly how this would be denoted on the report itself? I've been going over each of these reports with a fine-tooth comb, and *still* feel like there's contridicting info. (I'm assuming there's obviously something here I'm missing...)

Some quick examples of what I can find:

* The Equifax report says that the debt-to-credit ratio on the two charged-off BoA cards = Infinity%.

* The overview at creditchecktotal.com, under "What's impacting your credit?", lists all of the negative (true) reasons my score is bad...but then lists the single positive as being "Credit usage: 0%. Good job! Your account balances are low. Keeping your credit utilization rate low can have a positive impact on your credit."

My eyes are crossing.

Re: Seeking advice on improving credit + handling rental history!!

medicgrrl — Wed, 23 Aug 2017 14:13:55 GMT

When you're logged into Credit Check Total and go to the report, it should have a section called credit usage. In that section it shows balance of revolving debt, utilization and info about installment loans. Are the BoA balances shown there?

Re: Seeking advice on improving credit + handling rental history!!

Anonymous — Thu, 24 Aug 2017 05:59:44 GMT

Revolving Debt: $0.00

Revolving Credit Limit: $0.00

Revolving Credit Usage: 0%

Real Estate Debt: $0.00

Installment Debt: $0.00

Total Debt: $1,208.00

Re: Seeking advice on improving credit + handling rental history!!

medicgrrl — Thu, 24 Aug 2017 11:30:59 GMT

They're not counting it in your utilization, which is interesting. You'll gain a few points if you start letting a credit card report a small balance of less than 9%.

Re: Seeking advice on improving credit + handling rental history!!

Anonymous — Thu, 24 Aug 2017 12:28:18 GMT

Thanks for the advice-- I'll start looking around for 2 additional secured cards.

From there, then, if you don't mind my asking just a few others...

- I am planning to try and secure a ‘pay for delete’ on 2 of the accounts in collections. The other collections account, though, is a student loan— do I handle this one in the same way I end up dealing with the 3 “closed” student loan accounts? (I did recently create a new thread over in the student loan forum to work on the closed student loans— thank you!)

- If the 2 charged-off BoA accounts are not being counted under utilization, should they get a lower priority right now for dealing with + paying off?

- The 3rd charged-off account (Discover credit card) was one that I did finish paying in 9/2015. Is there any way to remove this charge-off (or have anything positive whatsoever come out of having paid it)?!

****A really big question: As I mentioned originally, my giant #1 goal is to be able to open a new apartment lease. I know that I owe 2 outstanding amounts to 2 past apartment companies. One is the $950 in collections (which I will pay off first thing here). The other is weirder. Digging through old paperwork, I was able to find their move-out worksheet, dated 5/2013, which lists my total owed to them as $4,490.79. However, I have never seen this debt show up on my credit report, and don't remember them ever even persuing it. On this one, I am REALLY confused about how to proceed (especially since it has to do with apartment stuff right now).

Re: Seeking advice on improving credit + handling rental history!!

Anonymous — Thu, 24 Aug 2017 12:33:04 GMT

Oh, and I'd meant to ask...

Is there any process of paying off that's any *better* than others? For instance...does your score improve more if you begin gradually and systematically paying things over months, vs (hypothetically speaking!) getting rid of all the debt in one giant payment? or vice versa?

Re: Seeking advice on improving credit + handling rental history!!

Anonymous — Thu, 24 Aug 2017 15:19:29 GMT

1) Liz, I'm so sorry if this stuff seems to be causing so much extra aggravation for you but ppl are here for you and TRUST me you'll be fine. You're doing nothing WRONG, this stuff isn't a cut n dry science and it is outside the programming of the culture we grew up with.
You are taking on a new language....and quite frankly, you are bravely diving deeper into the pool to actually try to understand how the game is play...I applaud your guts and effort to still be at, where most just skim the sacrifice dying not understanding 25% of what you're getting so 1st off 👏👏👏

2) No screw that gradual clean up deal...get rid of as much old B.S. as one can as quickly as one can = no value in playing any kind of waiting game this cleaning up dog poo poo 😿

3) Just wanted to be clear, Yes Ideally you want to add two CCs to your profile but if financially one is all you can do so be it... I just want to say that if you aren't just flush with cash to do it at once by the time, you're ready to secure #3 your profile is generally gonna be strong enough on the back of the other two and your clean work to very likely NOT need a security deposit for a 3rd by then it's very, very likely you'll score an unsecured card by then

The grab 2 deal is IF you can because obviously if you can pack 'em and stack 'em great but if not that extra few months may change a No way today to a Ok in November/December
* Remember two $250 TLs is fine if $500 is a comfortable amount to hide away in savings NOT to be desperately needed for the light bill in 3 months.
I tell ppl think of security deposit money as LOST funds, money in a 2 year CD not money you're gonna Jones for in 6 weeks

** In full disclosure
If a person actually NEEDS to actually DOUBLE UP on the use of the funds it can be accomplished but it's Russian Roulette only to be played by player fully committed and dedicated to the struggle...
Do NOT try this at home w/o a strong will and micro focus

But say a person secured a $500 secured CC with funds they needed to solve another issue in life

Ok not preferred but say they then turned around and paid the $500 problem away using said CC thus solving the issue AND establishing a TL

Will there will % paid paying the card down = Yep
Will there be score suppression because the card is maxed = Yep

However the overall % paid on the $500 vs not being able to secure a TL, one that's aging as one is paying it down ...again vs just giving up the cash and having NO TL at all = worth the thought

Again, what $30-$40 in % cost to basically Self-Lender a CC account IMO = strategical move to kill two birds on a budget...just me though

Re: Seeking advice on improving credit + handling rental history!!

medicgrrl — Thu, 24 Aug 2017 16:28:47 GMT

Ask all the questions you need, that's exactly what these forum's are for!

If you haven't already, I would pull your reports from annualcreditreport.com This will show you the DOFD. You're very close on the SOL for the BoA accounts so that may help you in making a decision regarding when you deal with those accounts.

Everyone has different short and long term goals with credit so there's no right or wrong way to tackle these. Your's is getting an apartment so definitely make the collection for your previous apartment a priority. Outside of that, keep the SOL in mind on the other accounts and keep working towards paying off the debts or possibly consolidation for the student loans.

Hopefully you're getting some good advice on the student loan forum.

As far as paying these off slow, there's no "payment history" for a collection or charge off. They will continue to update as delinquent every month until they're paid off. At that point they'll still be a derogatory account, but they'll quit updating monthly. You want to get them paid off as soon as possible.

Personally, I would use your funds towards paying off the debt before worrying too much about adding credit. You'll eventually want to add a couple of more cards, but get yourself in a position to get your apartment first.

Re: Seeking advice on improving credit + handling rental history!!

medicgrrl — Thu, 24 Aug 2017 16:31:31 GMT

I forgot to answer about the other apartment that's not showing....make sure it's outside of the SOL, then I would put it on the back burner for now, but be prepared with a plan in case someone decides to contact you.

Re: Seeking advice on improving credit + handling rental history!!

Anonymous — Thu, 24 Aug 2017 16:43:19 GMT

+1
With attacking and KILLING debt 1st

Slapping up enough positive history to manuver, with less bad stuff reporting is easy enough that it can be a #2

Re: Seeking advice on improving credit + handling rental history!!

Anonymous — Thu, 24 Aug 2017 17:11:11 GMT

Hmm, about the SOL on the 2 BoA credit cards...

According to the reports I already have pulled, the dates of last payments on those 2 were 3/19/13 and 5/11/13. If SOL in California is 4 years...are these safely expired?!