First post. Looked around for an introduce yourself thread and didnt see one so I am jumping right in.
Long story short, just got a Citi Simplicity card with a 2,000 limit. Current experian score is 633. A little under 10k spread across 3 crappy cards. <100,000 AGI. currently at about 60% utilization. One ding for a $300 hospital bill 5 years ago that went to collection and was paid.
Short story Long, i've got some CC debt, (<10k) that I have just been lazy about more than anything. Married and my wife and I make ok money (a little under 200k combined) but live in an extremely expensive area (Sonoma County) and have a newborn son so things still get a little tight sometimes. My credit score is currently 633 mainly because of high utilization and a hospital bill I was fighting that slipped into collection. (Since been paid). What I have going for me is 3 cards with 7 years of on time payments, oldest card is 13 years old, average age of accounts is about 8 years, and only one hard pull for my current mortage for the shoebox size condo we bought a year ago. We want to sell the condo and buy a house in 2019 so I need to start really improving my credit right away. Ive been reading these forums a lot in the last few weeks to start developing a plan to that end. The first step involved getting a good balance transfer card to park part of my debt while I pay the other part down. I wanted a chase slate but assumed that my low score would not land it. I crunched the numbers on Citi Simplicity and even with the 3% transfer fee it seemed like a better deal than not having it so I went ahead and applied. I was approved for $2000. A little disappointed it isn't higher but it still is a value and will save me about $500 in interest so im happy. I understand from my reading here that citi will not take a reconsideration call and that CL is locked in for 6 months so im going to take that and work with it I guess. Would like to maybe do another balance transfer card in a month or two (Maybe the slate this time) and then hopefully a good travel reward card (considering CSR) because I travel a lot for work and pay a lot of my own expenses that get reimbursed. Would like to open these three cards within the next 6 months so that all the pulls have fallen off in '19 by the time we are mortgage shopping.
Thanks for reading all that! 
Welcome to the forum where im sure you will learn alot!. Thanks for sharing your story seems you are heading in the right direction
. Wish the best for you on your credit journey and im sure if you follow the excellent advice here, your credit will be golden when it comes time for your new house. best of luck
. Wish the best for you on your credit journey and im sure if you follow the excellent advice here, your credit will be golden when it comes time for your new house. best of luck