First off, forgive me if I get a bit winded.
Like many people, I have wasted so much of my time and money waiting for the bs repair companies to repair/dispute/add tradelines to my credit.. and that went no where. After a year or two of researching on this forum, I've began rebuilding credit the "right" way. I orignally started off with seven or eight "baddies" and now I'm down to four, three that I'm really concerned about.
Diversified Consultants (Sprint), LVNV for Credit One Bank, & a National Credit Systems from an apartment that I lived at with three other roommates and I left - one was later evicted and about 1.5 years later it showed up on my credit (and supposedly everyone elses). With those combined is about $10k worth of debt. The one I'm not as concerned about at this point is a loan I co-signed on for a family member through santander. It's last report date was early 2015, I'm almost at the point where it'll just fall off and I'd honestly rather use that money to invest and make more money, plus I'm currently building good car credit even with it on. I've paid off the other baddies that was around $15k in the last year little by little and now I'm to the point where I just want to consolidate into one and pay that off. & correct me if I'm wrong but consolidating would give me the option to pay all three of these off in one sweep which would have all three deleted from my file, thus boosting me quite a bit, offsetting the fact that I would take out a personal loan while allowing me to start gardening better elsewhere.
My score with everything was about 480ish last year and now I'm at a 565-570. I have had a car loan with capital one since November '19 ($40k car that I put $10k down) and have obviously been 100% on time with it plus, a little extra towards the principle each payment. I believe I have an AU on Equifax as well but not on TU and Experian but I don't really feel that it's doing much. I'm to the point now where I just want to begin using credit cards for my spend, as every one should. I would rather consolidate and pay down a personal loan and have that go on my credit as an installment loan but my problem is after reading on some consolidation loans - I've read that some report on your credit as "debt management" which isn't a good look, and some just report as a regular installment loan.. I'd definitely rather have option two. Does anybody have any good recommendations as to which company would work with me given my score, won't look as bad on my report, and would let me pay lenders directly? I've seen quite a bit of options on nerdwallet and but I'd rather have someone with actual experience tell me & that is why I'm here.
Also just a bonus question, I've been paying this car note with capital one for a few months now - am I now or close to being in a decent enough position to apply for a entry level card with them? I make about $60k a year so I assume I should at least be able to qualify for a small line, something's better than nothing, even if I have to pay off a $500 credit card several times a week. I'd want to try to get this consolidation thing going first but if I can't, I at least want to go that route and begin building some sort of rapport.
