I am looking to refinance my ARM within the next 6 to 9 months. Current state: 635 FICO per Equifax Score Power Negatives IRS Tax Lien $3k showing unpaid put recently paid it off Old Providian accounts $3k total - paid both off this month not updated yet Small $100 from utilities - same as above recently paid off 8 total accounts with late pays. Most recent late pay was Jun 2005. Many lates payments on the 8 accounts. Active Revolving Accounts $3300 credit $300 balance I am looking for opinions on 2 things. 1. What would be my best action to increase my score? Get more credit? If so where? 2. Any predictions based on me paying the 2 old cc, tax lien, and uitilities will my score go up and if so any guesses on how much? I am worried about my score because I am not sure what making recent payments on these negative accounts does something. Any opinions would be greatly appreciated. -Desperado
This probably won't help your score, but unpaid it would likely have been a hindrance to obtaining a mortgage. You should search the IRS site to figure out how to get a Release of Lien or whatever it is called (maybe someone here knows) for your records. This could hurt your scores if you aren't careful. I would suggest monitoring your reports to make sure they don't get reaged to the payoff date. The older these get, the less they hurt, and my personal experience was that it was yearly mile markers - with any luck, you might see a jump when they hit the 3 year mark. You don't say how many is many, but it never hurts to send out some goodwill letters to these companies to see if they will remove them now (especially if any of these accounts are still active), alternatively, you can request the CRA's to verify their accuracy and see if some don't fall off. Active Revolving Accounts $3300 credit $300 balance Your debt to credit ratio at 10% is good. I'm not sure if more available credit will help you, and in fact, a combination of inquiries, and any new accounts you open can have a negative affect that takes time to recover from. How old are these and are they completely positive tradelines?
also if some of those accounts with late pays have not been late for over a year a goodwill letter may remove some of the late pays.
Wow thanks for the feedback. Active revolving: Accounts are four years old with no late pays. My closed accounts were where all the late pays were varying from 1 to 10 with an average of around 5 30 days in row. I was a little surpised that paying off a $3K tax lien and $3k in closed CC could hurt my score or at least not help it. I guess I will know fro certain in a few weeks. I know time obviously will help it. I appreciate the advice on new credit. I will hold off on adding any revolving accounts.
In a perfect world, it shouldn't, but we all know that if they aren't reporting properly, and list the pay off date as the DOLA, then it will hurt your score. That's why I suggested you monitor your report to make sure that they maintain accurate information.
