Thoughts on increase?

[Anonymous]

So I am trying to rebuild my credit to do a home loan. I have slowly been repaying. Went through a rough patch a few years back. I have paid quite a few collections off and have been getting things off my credit report. However, I have a few items left. Wondering what your opinions are on the increase I will see or if I should do anything different to help myself. I have high credit utilization. I'm around 60% and I am actively paying that down so I know the more  I pay the higher my score. But what are your thoughts on these being marked as settled and deleted.

PRA Collection: $350 - PAID and waiting for it to update and delete. Still says $350 not $0

PRA Collection: $0 - PAID waiting for it to delete

PRA Collection: $780 - still active

Kohls C/O: $565 - SETTLED for half today. Waiting for update to $0 and settled.

CFNA C/O: $878 - still active and updating monthly. Will hopefully settling this account today.

So after both C/O's are settled and marked at $0 and with the two collections paid and removed I will only have one left. I will try and get that paid ASAP too I just don't have all the money up front for what they want to settle it. It should come off in a month. What do you think my scores will be with just these deleted and/or settled? I'm hovering right around 590-600 for my Fico 8 scores. Any suggestions on anything else I can do besides get the last CO and CA off while paying down my credit cards?

[OmarGB9]

I don't think there's much else to be done once the CAs come off and the COs are paid off. Just keep paying on time, keep utilization in check, and make sure to not apply for anything.

Once the last CA comes off (not including COs, which won't come off until the 7 years from DOFD are up), you should see some nice gains. Possibly 30+ points.

[Anonymous]

I think time in your case will be your best friend. Keeping everything in check and staying under 20% utilization + time will help you the most. I'm curious what others would say about this, just my quick take on it.   

[Anonymous]

I know I am going to settle the one charge off today that I have left but do you think it would be more beneficial to do the charge off since it's reporting monthly and going against my ulization or pay the collection and have it at zero collections?

[OmarGB9]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I know I am going to settle the one charge off today that I have left but do you think it would be more beneficial to do the charge off since it's reporting monthly and going against my ulization or pay the collection and have it at zero collections?

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If you can pay off all collections first and get them removed, it would be more beneficial because collections are even worse than charge offs. Once you get all collections removed, you will be reassigned scorecards and go from a "public record" scorecard to a regular "delinquent" scorecard, giving you a higher scoring ceiling and usually yielding huge score gains.

[Anonymous]

Thank you for the info! I will settle the collection first. 

[Anonymous]

Not sure if you would have the same results as me or not. When I started Jan 2020 on my rebuild, I had zero CA on my file. I have a few CO on there that I haven't been able to get off through GW letters. My utilization across all cc was around 85-90% basically every card I have was maxed out. The score improvements in my signature pretty much reflect only the decrease in utilization and not missing payments. So lowering your aggregate and individual utilization SHOULD eventually get you some nice score increases.

[Anonymous]

Agreed. While a CA is a more severe hit than a CO, the fact that ANY derogs exist is what is holding you down. Losing the CA definitely helps, but as @OmarGB9 said, you're now suffering from the COs. Once you start getting them removed you'll see incremental gains, but you won't jump until the last one comes off.

[Anonymous]

I just finished paying off all my CA's. I settled one CO so I only have one CO left. Nothing has updated yet or been removed. All CA's were with PRA so they will all be deleted within the next 30-45 days. Even though I have one CO left and will within the next few months pay it do you think I will get a good boost for all CA's deleted then and one CO settled? I'm hoping that it will boost enough to hopefully get a mortgage soon.