WHAT WOULD BE THE BEST WAY TO RAISE OUR CREDIT WHILE PAYING OFF OUR DEBT?
My husband owes about $4600 in debt. His credit score is 580 or something like that. That is totally a reachable goal to pay off for us. It will take a little while but my question is that if we pay off what we can each week until he owes nothing how long would it take to raise our credit score up enough to finance a home? We’ve never purchased before and are really clueless. This is mostly hospital bills except for about 800 in other bills from a rough patch a few years ago. We really want to straighten it up and know it won’t be over night. Can anyone advise us on a correct plan of action that won’t make it take longer to fix his credit? Someone told us credit restoration but it would seem that since these are our bills they could just be added back on. I don’t want to just do a temp fix I want it permanantly off his credit. Also, we’ve been told to try owner financing for a home. If anyone has any advice on that subject please let me know.
We’ve not had any loans except for one car that we’ve had for two years and never had a late payment on. He’s got a cable bill and a swiss colony his bipolar mom ran up…what can you do? ya know?
Ask lenders for agreement to delete this items from your credit report when paying them. I recommend to get such agreement thru credit repair agency, for example this one – credit-report-score.10001mb.com
February, 16th 2010 at 11:06 pm
Being in the UK I can only say that the assessment for house purchase here is not entirely dependent on your credit rating. After all with a credit card there is no collateral. That is, the loan is unsecured. With house loans the loan company can take the property and sell it if you default in payments. This means the criteria for granting this type of loan is much less demanding. I imagine your system is similar to ours. Once you have cleared the $4600 you will be in a good position to discuss your requirements with house loan firms. Freddie Mac and Fanny Mae I presume? Good luck from the ‘Old Country’.
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February, 16th 2010 at 11:23 pm
580 is a very low score. The issue is more than just the amount of debt, it’s either late payments or not paying debt off, ie, repo’s, foreclosure, etc.
Paying off debt on time will help but it won’t fix it over night. Depending on how severe the issue was it could take the entire 7 years that those things sit on your credit report before anyone would finance you.
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February, 16th 2010 at 11:32 pm
if you are paying ALL bills on time and paying down debt, TIME is the only other thing that will raise your score – takes a lot longer to RAISE your score than it took to LOWER it
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February, 17th 2010 at 12:05 am
for one always pay ur bills, never go through a company to do it, no credit restoration… its ur debt and it will always look the best if you pay it off… positive payment history on cards and loans even if they are cosigned builds credit and scores… and to buy a home… about 5 years…
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February, 17th 2010 at 12:18 am
Make a list of all your bills, credit cards, and other expenses.
Be sure you can pay things like rent/mortgage, utilities, etc. in full each month. Then make sure you can at least make minimum payments on every credit card. Make sure each account is in good standing – this means, no overdue payments, the account is considered "up to date" and there is a payment plan in place (even if the payment plan is "the monthly credit card statement.")
Any left over money should be used to pay down the debt with the highest interest rate. Even an extra $5/mo. is better than nothing. When that debt is paid down, go to the next highest interest rate, and repeat. Obviously this may require you to cut down on extra expenses for awhile – such as eating out, or even cable TV. However if you want to buy a house, you may have to do without some luxuries for awhile, until you get your debts paid off and your credit back on track.
In general, making on-time payments, while reducing your overall debts is the best way to improve your credit score, but it’ll take time. Some derrogatory items on your credit report may not go away for years, even if they were resolved. For instance, I missed a credit card payment 2 years and it’s still on my credit report. It should drop off in the next few months, but it’s still annoying – especially since the account has been in good standing ever since then…
Also, sign up on CreditKarma.com. This is a free website that looks at your credit record, and suggests ways of making improvements to raise your score. It also provides you with your credit score (well, from one of the agencies anyways.) Again the site is free, and contains lots of helpful information.
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February, 17th 2010 at 12:54 am
I work at a library and there are books on how to repair your credit. It is in the 300’s section. It won’t hurt to go take a look and see if the books would be of help.
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February, 17th 2010 at 1:40 am
Ask lenders for agreement to delete this items from your credit report when paying them. I recommend to get such agreement thru credit repair agency, for example this one – credit-report-score.10001mb.com
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