I am someone who had a long long long history of late payments. Mostly just ignorance on my part, but I've corrected that behavior with the help of these forums. As I am reading your post, it looks like you were faced with either paying credit cards or a large medical bill that would end up in collection. Unfortunately, the lates (especially the 90 day to 180 day lates) are as bad as a collection (if I'm not mistaken). They are considered major derogatories and will ding your score for the full 7 years. Can your score rise in spite of that? Yes. What will help? Time. Good payment patterns. Possibly Goodwill letters to creditors, though I wouldn't count on it.
As far as your mortgage-readiness, I'd say you may be in a position where you must wait. I also came to these boards for that exact reason. Two years later, my reports are just now in a position to start the process. That was after extensive effort on my part to clean up my reports. People on here told me I would end up having to wait and I thought "no way, not happening." Ultimately that is what happened and it was the best decision possible for us. Renting longer sucked, but it was a consequence of my own actions (late payments habitually).
Yes, unfortunately 6 months is too short a time to recover from lates. 2 years is good, but even then, your scores will continue to be suppressed by those 90+ lates for the full 7 years. GW letters and time are your only options right now.
I've got 8 COs (4 still showing a balance) and 1 collection reporting and I just can't break the 600 mark. And even when I pay those charge offs back, they'll still hurt my scores all 7 years.
I've got 8 COs (4 still showing a balance) and 1 collection reporting and I just can't break the 600 mark. And even when I pay those charge offs back, they'll still hurt my scores all 7 years.
It does take time for sure. Many of my lates were in the 30/60 day range, but I had double digits in total count that were 90-180d+ late. It is very dependant on the profile. I'm in the high 600s (680/690 range) for all three scores and still have 48 lates on each report. It is possible, but very very very profile-specific.
I know it isn't what you want to hear on the waiting years thing. Unfortunately it can be the only option sometimes. Especially if goodwill doesn't work. I had mixed results with goodwill letters. Most of my lates have fallen off on their own with time. My post below is from last month (11/7/19) and at that time, I had 57 lates still on TU. I just checked and now have 48 this month, because a string of lates all deleted at the same time.
Edit to add link from where I posted about my own experience with lates recently: https://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Rebuilding-Your-Credit/Triple-Digit-Lates-on-my-TU-Down-to-Double-D...
That said, if your creditors are ameniable to your goodwill efforts, sure it is possible to get a mortgage quicker. Only a few months may be a stretch, but I've seen stranger things here on the forums so anything is possible.
@Anonymous wrote:
Thank you! Yes, you’re right about not wanting to wait years, but I will focus on paying on time and writing goodwill letters. 7 years for a late to fall off is lonnngggg although I think it is lessened after a few years.
Every late counts for the full 7 years as a result of scorecard segmentation... even 30D lates which don't banish you into the derogatory scorecards like a 60D+ does, or a public record.
If I've read your posts correctly, recovery is a process of getting current on all debts and then letting time pass short of GW letters: if the lates are still there they count.
There is a "recent deliquency" reason code which disappears after a certain period of time on all FICO models but it's longer than a year on most. That said, with solid positive history and a smattering of lates one can still score above 760 on every relevant score for Transunion, so there's a path out of the credit darkness but it's important to establish positive history not just negative tradelines. Also to note if you have a BK on your record that's there for the entire 10 years and much like my tax lien of yesteryear, going to have to get cozy in those scorecards for a while unfortunately unless it wanders away.
