This is my first post and I have already learned a bit from reading some of the other posts. Thank you in advance for any help!
My wife and I plan on purchasing a home later this year and would like to be qualified for a mortgage by July or August. Her credit is in the high 700's and my middle FICO 5,4,2 is 620. It's mainly due to past late payments, a few cc that charged off and went to collections and also a personal loan that defaulted.
I've already done quite a bit of repair over the last year. I was on payment plans with a couple of the old credit cards and finally paid them (settled for less than full). What I have left is a closed cap 1 with $600, closed PNC with $1,850, closed Citi with $3,500 and the personal loan with Avant with about $3,400. About a year ago these balances and from the couple I paid were roughly $30,000 and now down to about $9,300.
My plan was to open a cd secured loan through a bank, which I was told by a mortgage lender would increase my credit. I also wanted to try and settle for less on the few cc I have remaining.
Any thoughts on this strategy? Would a discover secured card help boost score as well? I'm hoping that negotiating a settlement won't reopen these charged off cc and lower my score. But I was told that having unpaid debt on a credit report might also DQ me and my wife from getting a mortgage. Any thoughts or help would be greatly appreciated!
