Rebuilding credit is a sprint, not a marathon.

[Anonymous]

It can be. 

I know the conventional statement is that, "rebuilding credit is a marathon, not a sprint."  While I think that the majority of the time this is true, it doesn't always have to be the case.  All it takes is a single major negative item, say a 90 day late payment, to completely crush scores.  I think it's important for those that may only have a single negative item or perhaps just a couple to know that it IS possible to bounce back extremely quickly; it isn't always a marathon that takes a long time.  I offer this perspective simply because I believe that many people can often get discouraged when they're told that rebuilding credit is a marathon, not a sprint.  They think that if they start now it's going to take years to see decent results and even more years to get to where they ultimately want to be.  

It's possible to have 2 brand new MF forum members arrive here and start reading the rebuilding section that have very similar profiles, except one would take significantly longer to fix their issues than the other.  Consider two people with nearly identical profiles outside of payment history.  One has payment history going back 5 years that's littered with negative items.  Late payment galore across many accounts, charge offs, collections, etc.  They cleaned up their act 1-2 years ago (no negatives since then) but their scores are stuck in the low 600's.  Conversely, you have someone that has only has just 1 negative item, a 90 day late payment from 2 months ago.  His score is also in the low 600's, but 6 months ago it was a 730 before the late payment.

Literally all it would take for this second person to get his scores from the low 600's back to 730 would be the removal of that single negative item.  This could take months to accomplish, or it could never happen depending on the lender... but it also could go away very quickly.  This is why I say that rebuilding credit can be a sprint at times.  I think it's important for people to understand that if they don't have a ton of negative information, it's possible to get to a comfortable place sooner rather than later.

I always like to link to the Saturation Technique thread as well, as following this method has helped many eliminate negative items through goodwill adjustments and achieve rebuilding success quicker:

https://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Rebuilding-Your-Credit/The-Saturation-Technique-Best-GW-adjustment-...

[aircobra]

They can't have similar profiles if one is littered with negative items and the other only has one. Of course the person with only a late payment reporting will have an easier time rebuilding.

[Anonymous]

i think he meant similiar scores for different reasons.

[Brooklyn2018]

+1 @BrutalBodyShots

[aircobra]

---

@Anonymous wrote:

i think he meant similiar scores for different reasons.

---

That would make more sense but seems easier to just say that. Profiles makes it seem like they have similar number of accounts and stuff.

[Anonymous]

---

@aircobraThey can't have similar profiles if one is littered with negative items and the other only has one. Of course the person with only a late payment reporting will have an easier time rebuilding.

---

I said similar profiles outside of payment history.  Payment history comprises 35% of your FICO score, so my example here is that 65% of their profiles are identical.  This means identical number of accounts, utilization, inquiries, age of accounts factors, etc.  Since there are rapidly diminishing returns on negative items, whether someone has 1 major negative or 10 major negatives may mean very little difference in score.  On the surface (score) it may seem that the person with 1 negative item is doomed [to the same degree as the other person with 10] where they really aren't.  Yes it may seem obvious that the person with 1 negative item will likely have an easier time rebuilding, but for those that arrive at this forum with very little knowledge or understanding of how these things work, I think it's important for them to understand this and not get discouraged assuming it will take years to overcome their poor-fair credit score.