Hello community!
I used the last 5 months of quarantine-time/reduced expenses to engage in a significant rebuild of my own credit. Thankfully, I didn't have too many baddies on my report, and so I used the AZEO method to get my score up, enough to start on my mortgage refi. More on that soon 
My S/O, great as they are, need to go through a rebuilding process of their own. Unfortunately, for them, they have several late payments on their education loans - about 20 total that is 60 days late, at least 3 that are 90 days (most recently in August last year), and at least 2 that are 120 days late (2016).
Their score right now - FICO8 = 675. Overall utilization 30%, although one card is at 70%.
Thoughts/suggestions on strategies will be greatly appreciated. One of the threads I read here suggests "adding" positive information, that pulls scores up. Can someone provide more information on what that means?
Right now, I plan to prioritize paying off their credit cards, and applying for 2-3 more, to increase their overall limit. Anything else that we can add?
@Anonymous wrote:I don't think you can drown out the bad with good -- it takes time to age away the bad
If they already have 3 or more cards then the only thing to pull the score up further is paying them off
+1
That's a common misconception. Adding positive TLs is nice, but they won't erase the bad, unfortunately. Only time can do that (and GW removal, though I've heard that's extremely difficult with student loans). All they can do, really, is continue paying on time and manage utilization.
Can they rehab their student loans?
Along with what has been suggested above, the utilization definitely needs to be brought down. One that utilization drops below thresholds, they may see small increases from that. Also, since you're familiar with AZEO, have them practice that as well. Do they have any installment loans? If not look into a shared secured loan (ssl). Some like NFCU will let them pay that loan down to 8.9% and keep the same maturation date. This will help boost their scores. Good luck
Goal Scores: 700 across all three
@itsy_bitsy_spyder wrote:Hello community!
I used the last 5 months of quarantine-time/reduced expenses to engage in a significant rebuild of my own credit. Thankfully, I didn't have too many baddies on my report, and so I used the AZEO method to get my score up, enough to start on my mortgage refi. More on that soon
My S/O, great as they are, need to go through a rebuilding process of their own. Unfortunately, for them, they have several late payments on their education loans - about 20 total that is 60 days late, at least 3 that are 90 days (most recently in August last year), and at least 2 that are 120 days late (2016).
Their score right now - FICO8 = 675. Overall utilization 30%, although one card is at 70%.
Thoughts/suggestions on strategies will be greatly appreciated. One of the threads I read here suggests "adding" positive information, that pulls scores up. Can someone provide more information on what that means?
Right now, I plan to prioritize paying off their credit cards, and applying for 2-3 more, to increase their overall limit. Anything else that we can add?
starting Fico is not the worst. AU account may not help much as it seems they already have a thick file of their own of CCs and SLs.
Biggest score boost will be getting the util down on the individual CCs and overall aggregate util as well. AZEO is your friend.
The only thing you can do about the SLs is to let those lates afe and since they are 90d+ lates, they will sting the entire time. The only GW success I have heard of is after the loans have been paid off. It isnhughly unlikely for any GW remival, but of course you can always try!
I would wait for some of the bad to be fixed before adding anything. Adding new TLs will just lower AAoA and AoYA. Just wait a bit until the util is lower and the lates get a little older. Then once you start seeing results from that, SO can start adding new TLs as actually needed and probably get better products and terms.
Good luck!