need help rebuilding.

[Anonymous]

My husband has one bad mark on his credit report and that was $16,713 NFCU cc that was charged off two years ago. He was out of a job for several months and we couldn't keep up with the payments.  Trying to rebuild his credit so we can start planning to buy a home in a few years. is it best to accept a settlement offer from NFCU for this debt or should we make payments to pay it off completely? he is the only source of income right now and makes about $55,000 a year. any advice is appreciated. thanks

[FireMedic1]

Any bad mark on your credit it will affect you until its settled or PIF. With NFCU if you can PIF. Theres a better possibility one day to get back in with them. Otherwise the door will be closed.

[AllZero]

Navy offers home loans. If your intention is to use them for that purpose, they would need to be made whole again.

[Anonymous]

if we chose to do the settlement would that affect us getting a mortgage? i read somewhere lenders don't like to see settlements on your reports. not sure how true that is tho.

[AllZero]

In general, PFD>PIF>Settled For Less>Unpaid.

I'm not a lender and can't answer that question. Best to seek the mortgage forum.

[Anonymous]

On a mortgage they’re going to manually go through your reports and look at everything. Settling a debt that large may well raise some eyebrows. If you plan to get your mortgage from NFCU, it would have to be repaid in full as mentioned above in order to get back in. Regardless, I would have to think that any underwriter would be concerned about a $16k debt being settled. If it was $1600 this would be a different conversation, but at that large amount, paying in full would be the smart move. I also think it might actually be impressive to an underwriter to see that you put in the time and work to make good on such a large debt.