@Anonymous wrote:
We are applying for a mortgage within the next two months or so-my score is 695 and my husband's is 705. We need to get to 725 for the best rates. I have some old 30 dpd and one 60dpd from 04 and 05 due to a divorce and ex husband missing payments. What can I do that is quick? I have a lot of credit available to me and I am utilizing about 34 percent which I know is high but I can pay down a bit of that . Thanks in advance for any help you can give me!
As to the lates, the best you can do on them is send GW (goodwill) letters to the creditors, explaining that they occurred during a divorce, you've had great history since then, and they are hurting your chances for a mortgage, would they consider helping you out by removing them, etc etc. Check in Frequently Requested Threads at the top of this board. There are two separate threads dealing with GW.
I seriously doubt that lates this old are doing much. I have an account with a 90-day late that is from March 2006. I had to dispute the current balance recently, and during the dispute process, my scores only went up 10 points. So I doubt that removing your older, "milder" lates would do much more.
Since you do have cash available to throw at the problem, and you're this close to your mortgage, it's time to do so. Here are some goals:
- NO accounts at 85% or more of their credit limits (this is maxed out)
- overall util as low as possible
- as many accounts with $0 balances as possible
- as many accounts as low as possible
So pay any accounts with high balances down to under 50% (lower is better), which will also help overall util; pay in full any accounts with very small balances, so that they report $0, and if you have any money left, pay as many of the rest down to 9% or less as possible.
It works out roughly to highest % accounts first, then lowest $ accounts next, then work on the remaining % accounts.
Since the cycle of updating is:
- you pay the cards down or off
- each individual card must update, probably on your next statement date
- then each card company must update your balance to the CRA's (credit bureaus)
- then each of the CRA's must update your reports,
there's a LOT of built-in delay.
Start paying as quickly as possible; check each account for its next statement date, and see if the new balance shows then; and see if the new balances each report, one at a time, on each credit report. Once everything is paid, if they're still not showing yet, you might have to ask your lender to do a rapid rescore, which is like $20-30 per account per credit report, so to minimize this, start paying as soon as possible, as in today.
It would be a good idea to sign up for a 30-day trial of TrueCredit, which will show you all three of your credit reports, so that you can see if and when the new balances post. Good luck!
Thanks to all of you who responded-I kind of knew that is what we had to do, but I needed to hear it from the pros I have been lurking and reading and have gotten a lot of useful information on these boards. Thanks again!
I have been lurking and reading and have gotten a lot of useful information on these boards. Thanks again!