Oh my.. DO NOT let them HP your reports every few months... I would not even continue with them!! With help from our forums, and all the people that have been thru all this , you will have it all fixed up in no time. Everything you need to know to rebuild can be done right here, and way more quickly and for no money! My advice is ditch them, but Im just one person's vote.
Edit...you can pull your scores right here on myfico. It will give you ALL the scores including your mortgage
@Anonymous wrote:Current situation:
I'm a disabled veteran who was basically homeless for 4 years with a wife and kids after being hurt and honorably discharged with no benefits. So as you can imagine, my credit jumped off a cliff. In October 2018, our lives changed when I was awarded 100% VA disability with P&T S1 and SSDI. I received $104k in back pay immediately (most of it still in the bank) and receive $5,124/month now. In our area, this is a good living. After moving my poor children around so much the past 6 years (they are 6 and 4 and moved about once/year ), we would like to buy a house and settle down as soon as possible (NOTE: I realize "asap" is probably more than a year away before I qualify, I just don't want to waste any valuable time). The only debt I had by Oct 2018 was 2 c/o credit cards (both paid off in Nov.) and a high balance on my $300 limit credit card (at $5 since Nov but with 3 months late payment in 2017 and 4 months of (non-concurrent) late payments in 2018). Both of my vehicles were paid off about a year ago at their natural maturity date. I don't have any other tradelines open or closed, never had any personal loans, other credit cards, mortgage, any other debt, etc.
So that's my credit profile in a nutshell:
1 (open) $300 capital one card
2 (closed) paid off charged off credit cards
2 (closed) paid off vehicle loans
Lender mortgage scores pulled: 539, 543, 545
I started working with Veteran's United Lighthouse program (credit rebuilding through VU mortgage lender) and at first I was really excited...but now I'm not really sure if the advice is that great. I was told to just pay my $300 limit credit card on time every month making sure to leave exactly $5 on it and they should be able to approve me in about 18 months to 2 years when my credit score should be around 620. He wants to do a hard pull every 60-90 days and when I asked him if there was anyway for me to pull my mortgage scores every so often to see if I'm on the right track, he replied in an email stating "As far I know, this is impossible. You can only gagde your mortgage scores when you apply for a mortgage."
I feel like there is more I could be doing and from reading about mortgage scores on here, I'm just not really confident with the advice anymore.
1. That many hard pulls?NO NO NO..DONT let them do that.
2. Only having 1 active tradeline? (2 c/o cards are past DoD and not reported anymore) You need 3 revolving accounts for FICO ultimate scoring
3. Only having a $300 credit limit? NO..We can help you change that!
4. I can't look at even semi-accurate mortgage scores on my own? YES you can. Right here on myfico
I feel like my file is too thin and that many hard pulls over 2 years sounds awful. Do you agree with his advice? NO!!! Yes, your file is too thin. You need two more CC's, and a small loan reporting for a credit mix. We can talk all about that later.
@Anonymous welcome to the forums. I am so happy that you found us, and I am going to second @pizza1's suggestion that you RUN from this mortgage lender! From a fellow vet, thank you for your service!
With the range that your scores are in now, allowing them to perform a hard inquiry on your reports that often is just going to likely make you continually lose a few points here and there - that could add up to a decent amount of points lost! You can get your mortgage scores and many others right here. There are other places to get your FICO 08 scores for less, but I'm not sure of other sites offering mortgage scores. It's also important to know that every FICO model will calculate a score differently, and different versions may have very different ranges of scores. So while you may have a 740 FICO 08 score, that doesn't mean that a 710 score on one of the mortgage models would necessarily be worse.
Ideally, you'll want to have three revolving trade lines and an open installment loan. Normally, we'd discourage anyone from opening new accounts when considering a mortgage, but with a razor thin credit file you're far more likely to benefit from doing this. Navy Federal Credit Union is now open to veterans and they can be quite generous, so they may certainly be one to consider. Many credit unions offer what's called a Share Secured Loan, and this is a great trick for the installment loan. You'll want to make sure you choose a credit union that will extend the date of your next payment rather than shortening the length of the loan. Basically you borrow a set amount of money, we'll call it $1,000 for 36 months. You immediately pay back like 91.1% of it so that it's reporting a balance of 8.9% or lower (due to rounding this will ensure it is more than 90% paid off) and then make tiny payments toward that last little bit that you'll pay an extremely small amount of interest on over the life of the loan. That often gives people a boost of 15-30 points alone!
With the revolving credit cards, to maximize a score you need fewer than 50% of your revolving cards reporting a balance and ideally one card reporting a balance of 4.9% or less of its credit line when the statement cuts each month. 3 is the magic number, because with 1 card that's 100% of cards and with 2 cards that's 50%, which is not fewer than 50%. Again, Navy is great. You may also consider a secured card from Bank of America or Discover, which will unsecure and grow later on so you don't have to close them. Which Capital One card do you have, a Platinum? Does it have an annual fee?
It's important to know that there is no minimum score for a VA loan to be approved, but different lenders will have different requirements for their own underwriting even with the guarantee from the VA. Give us a shot to help you and I'm sure your family will find themselves in a home much earlier than you expected! Very happy to hear that you got the back pay and that your family has some stability once again.
Finally, have you pulled all of your credit reports (you can get them free from annualcreditreport.com) to see exactly what is reporting on each? It's possible that some of the negative information can be removed through goodwill letters if they are still reporting. Best of luck!
I definitely +1000 to everything @K-in-Boston just said. Apply to Navy now, they are absoltuely amazing!!!! and also with your thin file...Discover would like you as well.
Thank you guys so much and for being so quick. This guy had me feeling insane.
For anyone interested: The program is the Veterans United Lighthouse program. Veterans United is a VA home loan lender and the program is free through them after an initial denial (required). Although it is free, it seems very damaging (**At least the guy I'm assigned to. I cannot speak on the program as a whole unless these are standard guidelines**) and I would keep this in mind if you see anyone else on here working with them to repair credit.
I'll sign up either tonight or tomorrow for my scores.
I mentioned I had some money in the bank so that you guys could suggest what I should do next. As long as I qualify, I can take out loans, get new credit cards, etc with no worry of payment obligation. We don't spend a lot of money and don't need a lot to be happy I can't really qualify for any credit cards right now since I have recent late payments and a low score, should I wait a few months or find something that I qualify for now? What would you do? Would you do something like Fingerhut or Ginnys?
My wife and I have both agreed that time is more valuable than any money we would spend in interest/services/etc reparing my credit - so I will listen to all suggestions.
I'm so happy I found a great community with no shamers or smart-you-know-whats. I will absolutely take your advice with dropping VU and finding a new lender when the time is right.