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Advice for pay down for the rest of my debt to qualify for home loan

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M_Smart007
Legendary Contributor

Re: Advice for pay down for the rest of my debt to qualify for home loan


@Anonymous wrote:

Thank you. I was so clueless on closed cards. I didn't factor them in. 


@Anonymous, You are welcome ..You have been given some great advice by other posters!

Good Luck on your new houseSmiley Happy

Message 11 of 16
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Advice for pay down for the rest of my debt to qualify for home loan


@Anonymous wrote:

I will take your advice. I've had the subprime so long that I didn't know if I should keep them. I definitely want to get rid of the store cards. I was going to try CLIs next month. I was honoring some would be automatic. 

 


Make sure the CLIs are soft pull so you don't take a ding. The challenge with so many cards and a mortgage is that the minimum payment is factored into your monthly debt. So having a lot of small balances showing $25-$35 minimum payments will affect your DTI ratio. You'll have to find a balance between paying your closed cc balances which are affecting your score and cancelling as many of the lower balances as possible which are affecting your DTI. Happy to make some suggestions for you if you can DM me a link to the file. 

Message 12 of 16
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Advice for pay down for the rest of my debt to qualify for home loan

Hello Boisvert, 

 

I'm going to add the spreadsheet and DM you. Thank you. 

Message 13 of 16
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Advice for pay down for the rest of my debt to qualify for home loan

Here's how I would approach it:

 

With about $77, you can zero out five cards, the one at 6.3%, and the four that are in the one percent range. That's five more zero-balance cards that will help your mortgage scores, and five more cards whose minimum payments will not enter your DTI calculations. 

With another $4000 you can use, you can bring your aggregate usage down to 19.8%, which is much better than where you stand currently. You want to try to maintain no more than 28.9% aggregate reported usage (8.9% is much better but below 28.9% is a solid scoring threshold and a major marker for borrower stability). The lower the better.

 

The key is to be strategic - not all paydown strategies are equal. As mentioned upthread, mortgage scores love zero balances. Paying off as many of your cards as possible is great. You also want to get everything under 28.9% individually though. The problem is the closed cards - they total $6462.25, which is over half of your outstanding balance. As good as it would be to pay down your open cards I think your best bet is to pay off as many of the closed cards as you can. Because of that, I would pay off all of them except Old Navy and Care Credit. This will consume the entirety of your $4000, but it wipes the slate on seven accounts. Combine that with the $77 above and you end up with 7/9 closed cards at zero, only two closed cards with balances, and five more open cards at zero. 

Any holes in this theory, I welcome constructive criticism and correction so we can best advise OP on her plan going forward.

 

 

 

 

Message 14 of 16
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Advice for pay down for the rest of my debt to qualify for home loan

That's a great idea. I can payoff 7 closed and work on paying down the the last two over the next couple months. 


 

Message 15 of 16
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Advice for pay down for the rest of my debt to qualify for home loan

Exactly. Also, you have a few that are just over 27%. Throw a few bucks at them to get them under 27% and when your statements cut, and interest is added, they'll stay below that 28.9% breakpoint so you don't lose any points for individual card usage.

Message 16 of 16
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