In answer to my timeline question, you said "I am hoping to apply in January." Does it mean you hope to go through closing in January and own the property sometime in February? Or do you mean that you hope to apply for a pre-approval in January and then might not actual close on a particular house until much later?
You mention not knowing what the auto loan payoff was. Does that mean you are talking about an auto loan that was closed (you paid it off)? I was under the impression that you had an open auto loan that are still paying on right now.
You mention that you have one baddie. (A collection.) But it sounds like you also have a bankruptcy on your credit file. That means you have two significant bad marks on your profile, not one.
I didn't see where you answered my question about what tools you were using to access your credit reports and credit scores.
Right now, you have at least one concrete step you can take toward improving your credit scores. That's the plan we've developed about your credit cards. But I sense that there's a lot about credit that you don't understand yet. My advice at this point if to spend a lot of time ASAP learning how credit and credit scoring works. Learn how to pull all three of your credit reports. Learn what every line on all three reports means. Learn the difference between mortgage FICO scores, other FICO scores, and non-FICO scores. Figure out your own timeline for homebuying. Figure out when your collection will be paid off, how you can be confident of getting it removed, and where that factors into your home buying timeline. Once you have done a lot of that homework, you should probably revisit the Rebuilding and Mortgage forums here and begin a new thread -- but only after you have made some progress on your own.
Best of luck....
