Advice for Mortgage Qualification

[Anonymous]

Hello all- I am new, and relatively new to actively tracking my credit, which is a bad move from day 1, especially with a bankruptcy discharge 18 months ago. My husband and I are trying to prepare for a mortgage, and I know we are not great candidates at the moment. However, I would like to do all that we possibly can so that in another 12-18 months we will be able to obtain a mortgage. Currently, our scores is between 545 and 580. He had a charge off (GRR!) that I wasnt aware of and a late payment for Child Support. Since then, it has been corrected, the charge off is being paid off, all our credit cards are currently "pays as agrees" with no past due balances and our auto loan is always paid on time, without fail. The charge off and child support will be a year old at Christmas time and we will continue to pay everything else on time. Can anyone give me advice on other steps we should take? Open a secured card? Obtain a small personal loan? Or just let the process work itself out. We will be first time home buyers when this happens. We will fully admit we havent always been financially responsible, but also had a major illness that set us back even after our bankruptcy. We are just trying to recover and do what we can do. Also- I almost can see the response before I ask the question, but would rent to own be a good option for us or should we stick it out and wait to obtain a traditional mortgage. Thank you!

[los_west]

The only things that worked for me was to keep paying on time, write GW letters, pay for deletion, dispute items that were not accurate, refrain from getting unneccessary inquiries, and simply let the good account age.    It took me a full year, and I was able to get several lates removed, and a couple of collections deleted.

[Anonymous]

What is a gw letter? I'm rather naive. I'm glad to know pfd works for some people. Thank you!

[los_west]

GW are goodwill letters/emails/phone calls that you can make to companies and basically beg them to remove derogatory info from their tradeline.  The bouncing back from credit problems board is a great place to start.  Some companies will remove, while others won't. But it never hurts to try.