First off what a great wealth of information this site is! We are currently rebuilding our credit after several rough years and I have a question about which way to proceed. We have 2 CO's, one settled for less and one still making payments with 7300 balance. Two current CC's one at 10300/14000 (perfect payment history) and the other is a new QS(3000) that I am using to pay all bills and PIF each mounth. Current FICO is EQ-641 TU-648 EX-628. I am considering going in two seperate directions, one is continuing to try to pay off outstanding balance which looks like it will take approx 3 years or refinance with a new loan on pay off immediately. Currently on year 11 of a 30 yr fixed @ 5.25% 259000/325000. We are now working on 7 months of no late payments with mortage company and they said we could refinance after 12 months of current status(September '16). I would be looking at a 20 years loan and taking out $20,000 to pay off debt and have a little buffer to remain in the bank. Currrent home value is around $475,000. I have ran simulators on the refinance and is looks to make about a 40 point drop in scores which I really don't care about that because I will have all the debt gone immediately.
Any thoughts on what would make more sense? If I am not going to refinance I would like to get a few more CC's to thicken the file and raise available credit which is at $17000 right now.
