mortgage and raising credit score?

Dec 162011
 

I have a quick question for me.

I am looking to buy a house. Getting financing is not a problem, getting mortgage insurance is.

The finance company tells me that my wife’s score is about 25 points too low (to get the loan we want) due to having used to much of her credit in ratio to her limits. We need to get her from 655 to 680. She was off work about 3 1/2 years ago due to illness and basically lived off her cards for 2 months. Prior to our getting married about a year ago she was only able to make small payments. She was never late, she just could not get ahead enough to make much head way on paying the cards off.

Since we have been married, we have taken the cards one at a time and have paid 3 totally off and cut three more balances by more that half, but we still have three with 75% of the high limit used. This is hurting her score.

Here is my question-I could pay down the score, but I need to use the cash on repairs necessary to get FHA financing and for the down payment.

Could I reduce balance to limit ration and improve the score if I get her credit limit raised? If I do this would the credit companies pull her credit report again and would that hurt her score more than raising her limit would help? I would ask four different cards for higher limits.

Thanks for your time, Wes

mortgage and raising credits score question?

Dec 162011
 

I was hoping for a answer to a quick question.

I am looking to buy a house. Getting financing is not a problem, getting the mortgage insurance is.

The finance company tells me that my wife’s score is about 25 points too low (to get the loan we want) due to having used to much of her credit in ratio to her limits. We need to get her from 655 to 680. She was off work about 3 1/2 years ago due to illness and basically lived off her cards for 2 months. Prior to our getting married about a year ago she was only able to make small payments. She was never late, she just could not get ahead enough to make much head way on paying the cards off.

Since we have been married, we have taken the cards one at a time and have paid 3 totally off and cut three more balances by more that half, but we still have three with 75% of the high limit used. This is hurting her score.

Here is my question-I could pay down the score, but I need to use the cash on repairs necessary to get FHA financing and for the down payment.

Could I reduce balance to limit ration and improve the score, if I get her credit limit raised? If I do this would the credit companies pull her credit report again and would that hurt her score more than raising her limit would help? I would need to ask four different cards for higher limits.

Thanks for your help.

Need To Improve Credit Score

Mar 222011
 

Hello Everybody,

 

Well my name is Lily and I am here because I need advice on impoving my Credit Score.

My parents are in DEBT and they are loosing our home the only hope we have is Refinancing, My father wants me to give it a try. I am the only one with a Decent Credit Score.

 

My Fico is 585.

 

The only problem is that i have credit card debt, i have never been late or missed any payments. the problem is that i have used more than my 30% on the cards.

I am carrying a balance on probably 10 cards.

 

Recently one of my dogs got sick and we couldnt affor the vet bill so i applied for several cards and i believe that had a negative impact on my credit.

 

can someone give me advice on how or what will help me  improve my credit.

 

Thank you very much.

 

BTW: My total debt is about: $7,000 (credit Cards) and i have an auto loan of ($19,000)

paid off all cards!

Mar 152011
 

Woo hoo, we just had a financial windfall through inheritance and immediately paid off all credit cards, how long does it take to show up on the credit reports/scores. And then each of our cards has a credit protection on them, which is incurring at least a $5.00 and + charge per month.  should we call and ask those to be removed?  We will not close the accounts but are cutting all but the couple of oldest ones.   We purchased the monthly score watch, and Suze Orman’s package. Any guidance would be appreciated as we don’t ever want to “go there” again,,,,,,,,,, thank you, thank you, thank you!

Weighing my options

Mar 142011
 

I currently have 4 store charge cards that all have between 950-1300$ on them apiece. I have not made payments on any of these cards since about September of 2010, due to losing my job. I just recently won an appeal to get a lump sum of back pay from them, and it’s just enough to cover the outstanding debts as they currently stand. Now I am attempting to weigh my options, whether I should pay in full, pay for delete, or settle, or some one way, some another.

To start, last week, I arranged with WFNNB to pay in full two of the cards (~$2000 total), both still being held through them as the OC. I wasn’t really aware of any other option so I gave them my bank account info and set it up that way, as they were threatening legal action if I didn’t do it on that day (I realize this was probably just pressure tactics but I was scared and had intended on paying anyway so I just went with it). The payment will not post until the end of the month, and I was told I could call and cancel it if I was unable to make it. Now I am reading about “pay for delete” and things like that and am wondering if I should just consider that ship sailed (as I’ve basically admitted I have the money), or if I should be calling, cancelling that payment, and asking about PFD. Is PFD going to cost me substantially more? If so, I can only do it for some of the cards– Literally my whole backpay amount is taken up by these cards, since they include late fees.

The other two accounts (Citi and HSBC) I have not yet made arrangements with. They have both offered me settlements which I did not respond to as I did not have the money at the time. I don’t know how to find out whether the debt is still held by the OC or a CA at this point– Looking at my yearly credit report, Citi is listed as charged off but still shows a recent balance, HSBC is just listed as “closed” but also has a recent balance, however the settlement offers I recieve from them are not coming from HSBC, but “firstsource advantage”, so I don’t understand who owns it anymore.

So basically, I am trying to consider the best option for me, both short and long term. Up until the last 8 months, I have always been on time with my payments. I don’t know if my best options are to just pay it off in full and move on, or if I should even be considering settlements, or PFD (some of these accounts are barely 2 years old, some since 2004). I have other accounts in both good and bad standing, but it’s just these four I can’t keep up with and am ready to get away from. Thanks in advance for any advice that you can offer.

Woo hoo Hit one of my first goals 640 across the board!

Mar 122011
 

The ultimate goal I have is  purchase and move into a house before the end of this year.  I have broken this path into a couple sections.  First thing I had to start  new trade-lines. When i first  got into financial trouble I cancelled all my cards, even the ones in good standing. Mistake on my part.  I took the credit hit on inquiries and opened 4 new accounts. Two have began reporting, and waiting for the other two. Fingers crossed that the further lowering of my AAoA won’t pull me below 640.

After getting these new lines going I turned to the baddies I had on my reports. I had two charge off’s I PIF, they wouldn’t do PFD’s, so now I will drops $30 in stamps ink and paper GW them to death.lol   I have one last baddie to attack, past the sol and from reading this board very PFD friendly. This will not only remove another derog, but get my utl% from over  %100 to %20.

 

680′s by Sept So glad i found this site.

Want to start improving my score

Mar 112011
 

Hello all,

 

I never paid much attention to my credit score nor did I worry about it. This has probably hurt me. I joined this forum and turn on the credit monitoring to get things back under control with the goal of purchasing a house in 1 or 2 years. My current Equifax number is 602.

 

February 2011, I carried 4 credit cards all of which were nearly maxed out. They were from Key Bank, but I believe the underwriter sold it to another, they used to be considered Gold, Platinum, and Student, but now they are all the same. Unfortunately, I opened them in 2005/2006, but when Elan took over, they are now all backdated to March of 2010, losing my history before. I was never delinquent on my payments.

 

Here are my cards:

 

Elan Financial, CL 3000, 7.99%

Elan Financial, CL 1000, 14.99%

Elan Financial, CL 500, 24.99%

PayPal, CL 700, not sure on %

 

All were at like 95% util.

 

I also applied for and was accepted for a AMEX Zync card in February (2011) as well. I prefer the rule where they have to be paid in full.

 

Wanting to get in control, I paid off every card and requested to close the 500 and 1000. I kept the PayPal and 3000 open. After lurking on these boards, I kind of wish I kept the others open.

 

I have a student loan through the US Federal Student Aid. In that, I have one blemish – a 60 day late in June when I was messing up my automatic payments and when they were due and not paying enough when the yearly price rose. Is there anything I can do about this?

 

I also found that I have a collections account against me, for medical equipment that should have been covered by my worker comp. I contacted the collection agency and they just requested my worker comp information. How soon can I expect them to correct it?

 

I have an auto loan that I have been good on.

 

I currently rent my home and have been good on that, but it does not get submitted to the credit agencies.

 

And that is it.

 

Since I have payed down all of my cards, should I expect a big boost in my credit score? And if so, when?

 

Also, with the fear of rising gas prices and my current monthly payments on my auto loan ( I have a Land Rover LR3, 13mpg), I am looking to trade it in for a new vehicle so I can save a few extra hundred a month. A dealership offered me $19k trade-in value, I owe ~$13k on it.

 

So my next steps, what do you think they should be?

 

I want to be sure the collection account is removed.

I want to request that the 60 day late be removed.

My first goal is to get rid of my vehicle and purchase a new to me vehicle, to save on gas and payments.

Should I also apply for new credit cards to up my overall credit limit?

 

Thanks for your help and I am excited to join this community!

 

- Clash

getting back into the swing of things

Mar 072011
 

hi everyone, first post.  i’ve been lurking around the last few days.  what brought me here was google search of “best buy master card rewards zone”  i received one of these preselected offers the other day.  so on a whim i decided, “why not?”  already having some idea that i would probably be rejected.  to my suprised they approved me $300 with annual $59 fee. 

 

granted, i this amount isn’t that much to celebrate but to me i thought “wow, this is great!”  prior to this approval, i have a victoria’s secret account.  i was an authorized user on my parents’ world perks signature visa (has since become amex delta sky miles) 7 years ago.  i also had an account with msufcu (michigan state university federal credit union) that was opened in 2006 with a $1500 limit (visa classic) but was closed by the creditor in 2009 because i was past 180 due.  i have been paying it down since then. 

 

so with the new best buy mc approval, i thought, why not give msufcu a try again.  so i called and again to my surprise, they reopened my visa (now called “visa platinum”) with a limit of $2,500/16.9% APR.   the prior blance from my old account carried over of around $860 and change.  i’m thankful since i thought i wouldn’t be able to get any line of credit since this incident. they mailed me a letter yesterday stating my score 614 (from experian)

 

so lurking around more on these forums, i looked into seeing what other cards i could apply.  i thought amex zync since most people seemed to get approved and i thought it would be a good way to get my foot in the door with amex.  they didn’t approve me for the no set limit card but offered me two options: $500 limit provided that automatic payment would be set up in conjunction with my bank account or $200.  naturally i went with the $500 option.  i see this as a way of treating the card like a debit card (what i’ve been using the last 3 years) and help build my way up to the other line of amex cards.

 

as a last ditch effort, i tried to apply at macy’s today, hoping i would get approved this time (i tried to apply about 1.5 years ago but was rejected on the spot).  it came up as not approved but not declined, either.  the sales associate told me that a further review would be looked into.  i’m really hoping i do get approved since i want at least one more store card (albiet victoria’s secret and best buy).  i would actually be surprised if i do get rejected again, though.

 

now i’m wondering with the amex zync and the reinstatment of my msufcu visa, would these cards definitely be helpful in rebuilding/building my credit?  now i kinda regret doing the best buy app (had i known before i probably wouldn’t since they do a hard pull).  what’s people’s recomendation on the best buy master card?  any tips or pointers on all these cards would be helpful as well as any recomendations for cards to build credit.  thanks so much.

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