Hi folks! I haven't been on this board yet...I've been over on credit cards and general credit building. My main goal however is to get a mortgage for a rent house we are in (for 12 years). My wife and I have not been very good with credit and have paid the price. We've been married for 20 years and had a bad spell in 2009 all our credit cards went Chernobyl (I had 3, she had 2). I wished I knew then, what I know now. I was stupid for not jumping on it and fixing it quickly instead of wallowing in the "We just have bad credit" and there's nothing we can do about routine.
I did get a secured card (BoA) in 2012 and was able to get a car loan later that year. We traded that car in for a new lease car in 2014 and got a new loan on a second car. So now that we were getting back on our feet, I contacted a LO with AmCap Mortgage in Mar 2015, that works with people with credit issues. I let her do some pulls to see where we were at and she said I was at 680 and DW was 630…taking her low, we were a little short of the 640…but we were getting close enough to start getting serious. Biggest issue is we didn’t have the 3.5% down we would need since we couldn’t qualify for 0% since we made too much money (Combined 90k). So we went to work trying to get the down together.
I screwed up in Nov 2015, falling for the Zero Interest 36 mo Devil Card. My score dropped 50 pts to 630!!! Good news is, it made me finally look at the monster in the closet and I started learning about credit and have ended up here on this web-site….( Btw, I think this web-site should be required reading for everyone. Stupid, simple to fix things with credit can avoid years of misery). We have a little saved up now ($6k), but we can’t save quick enough, so I decided to take my SS retirement a little early. Since I am still working, this would allow us to get ahead quickly since it adds $2k a month to our income.
I was set to get my first check in August, then my wife unexpectedly lost her job on Aug 2nd (and currently is still not working). It was a shocker and left us reeling from the total blindside in our plans. She was most of our income, but fortunately the SS checks will help stave off a disaster. She has some things going on and quite possibly, could end up making more money, combined with my SS, our income could go up to $120k +. You can see my current scores below (everything has not hit on all of them) and her scores are TU:714, EQ:693, EX687, and the credit cards we’ve been able to acquire. I have only one baddie left which falls off in Nov…DW will lose 2 of her 3 this month and the third next spring. We are in the garden now, 16k tcl and 5% util letting things mature. Oldest TL is 12 yr, Revolving AAoA was 2.1 yr, but now the 2 new cards I am sure make a big hit, but overall, I think we have a good base to let things grow from and should be in good shape starting next spring…. while I am on the subject, we have 6 yrs perfect payments.
Now here’s my questions…first is the LO I am working with. She has been awesome to me and has given me plenty of advice (from what I know), but dw doesn’t think she is for real, and she wants me to find and work with our bank (JSC CU) and maybe Chase (I believe I got the CSP card because we had financed new of our cars through Chase which is paid and closed right now). I like working with her, but I know I haven’t looked around much. Our credit has improved enough to where I think we should 720 or better when we get ready, so I know we have many more options to look at, but I don’t know how to research that. (you get barraged by Quicken Loans and all the other aggressive mass marketers when look).
The other question is about what we are trying to do,there are a lot of issues with buying this house that complicates things.…it won’t be that easy for us to look elsewhere to live, but not impossible. The house was worth about $180k 4 years ago, now it’s grown to apx $235k. The problem is, it needs a lot of work. It was completely remodeled in 1997 and we have been in it since 2003. The Landlord lives out of town and still remembers it from then, not understanding that is 20 years later since the remodel. It will need around $30k worth of upgrades (A/C, roof, pool needs a lot of work, paint..etc…) So I don’t know what it will appraise for.
One LO I talked said there was a package where you can roll the remodeling into the deal…but all the work has to be done by bank approved contractors and inspections.... my AmCap girl says to stay away from that because of all the strings and complications…rather to buy the house as is, then take out seconds to do the repairs. I am afraid, now that I understand more about credit, that since my real estate investment would be at 85% util (200k out of $230k), would they loan me another $30k and max out my util?
Any advice or comments would be greatly appreciated!
