Edit: The post is long - I apologize in advance for that 
Hi guys~
So, I'll try to be brief. I am now 34 but in my younger years (I know to some I am still young lol) I never took my credit seriously and used it wildy, irresponsibly, and at the end of the day pretty much ruined it. Fast forward 12+ years, and here I am. I have never pulled my REAL credit report (until tonight) but over the years I did make conscious efforts to pay back on collections and have them removed from the credit report in the process. Recently, I got a couple of credit card offers so I decided it was well beyond time to start to get this back to where it should be and accepted the offers in an effort to use them a bit, pay them off, and hope it would help push my credit forward.
Up until recently I just checked on CreditKarma every so often but it showd me as a "thin file". I always found it off since I know I had a ton of credit years past and while some of it (read: most all of it) was BAD I was surprised at a thin file but I figured that's better than bad stuff on it? Anyways, CreditKarma finally showed me a score when I looked today and it showed me a score of 760. I was shocked... One of the biggest shocks to me was that when I logged in I seen a CC w/ a CL of $15,000 and I realized right away that my fathers CC has been helping me to rebuild in some ways for about a year now. He has me listed as an authorized user and apparently that reports to my credit also? Has to, since it's there... So, I ended up here... I quickly realized that those scored on CreditKarma were likely not accurate so I decided to dump the $55 and pull my REAL numbers here since my goal is to get this right so I can buy a house, sooner than later... This is what I seen:
EQ - 709
TU - 723
EX - 747
So, I thought to myself when the screen initially came up "WOW!". It's definately not the 760 CreditKarma showed me but it did confirm that I am likely on the right track in my life again. I checked through all the options. No collections, No negative accounts, and everything lined up with what I have done in the past 2 months on inquiries. The only thing that is missing is a 2nd CP1 card but from my researching they don't seem to be in a hurry to report on a new line of credit so it seems.
Now, hopefully you are still reading because that's where the story ends and where my questions begin. My goal is to buy a house within the next 6-8 months.
Where do I need to be for this to happen? Right now I have 2 credit card accounts. Well, 3 if you count the one of my fathers that is apparently reporting on my credit also.
Do you guys have any advice on how to push these numbers higher within the next 6 months to help me when I try to buy a house?
I need a vehicle pretty badly and from all of my research these #'s should get me a loan - how much would you guys think I would be approved for and what kind of interest rate with making $45,000/yr?
Should I just make due and not try to get a vehicle until the housing situation is settled or will it be even harder to get a auto loan once I get a house?
I apologize for this being so long I am just excited I am finally putting one foot in front of the other after most of my life running from bill collectors and avoiding phone calls, lol... I sincerely appreciate you guys reading this and thanks for any suggestions you all have ahead of time!
