Hi all! I am new here (by the way, thanks Momof3 for the chat tip. I hope to join ya'll tonight!) I have a question about my FICO score. I just recently learned that my score is 619. The main reason was a charge off (which I just paid in full) from 5 1/2 years ago; and I have 5 collections (all paid in full as agreed) for old medical bills. I also have a few cards with high balances, but should have those paid down to at least 50% within 30 days. I am attempting to get a mortgage soon, but wonder how long I should wait before checking my score again with having paid off some of the things. Also, if my score doesn't go up, has anyone gotten a mortgage with this type of credit? I have a high annual income (over 75k). What are my chances??? Thank you so much for all of your help and what a fantastic board!!!!
hi Txmommy I had your exact beacon score last summer. I bought a car with a 619 score with a 13.9% interest rate. My scores were the following in the last year 4/00- 593 with many unpaid collections 7/00 - 619 many paid collections & lots of inquiries 1/01 - 653 few paid collections and fewer recent inquiries 3/01 - 702 few paid collections and fewer recent inquiries As you can see my score went from 593 to 702 in less than one year. I had many, many, many paid items deleted thru the verification process/disputing and a little help from junum. I recommend you start disputing some of those paid collections b/c sometimes the lender doesnot bother to verify paid items, particularly older items. Once they are off your score will jump in a few months as my score did. I also added many, many accounts in the spring and late summer of last year and then let them age with perfect history over a few months. That was my strategy and my opinion it worked. I just started the mortgage process on Friday. Wish me luck. I wish you luck Also.
Re: hi Txmommy question --Dallas aka Roni: Very impressive! How did your balance to limit ratio change during the past year and how much do you think that influenced the increase in your score?
Re: hi Txmommy Dallas, thank you so much for your response!!! It gives me great hope to know that you were able to raise your score significantly in the past several years. Good luck on your mortgage loan, and please let me know what type of rate you get!!! Thanks again! TXmommy
? Dallas I am thinking about enlisting the help of Junum to dispute the medical collections. Can they dispute them even though they were paid in full? Also, can you tell me how much it costs for a service like Junum? Thanks again for your help, and I would love to hear about your loan process... txmommy
TX and DAve Txmommy, You have little to worry about. YOu will qualify for fha definitely from what you have told me. From my experiences, I know that your score can and will jump 100 points in a year by following my strategy. We had a poster here about 6 months ago. He claimed to be from one of the BIG 3 credit bureaus. Well he was ran off this board by some people here who disagreed with him. Well I emailed him and he told me that my score would be in the 700's by following the stratgey he emailed to me. HE was Right. Dave, I had very low credit limits in 4/00. I only had a $200capital one. I got many, many cards last spring and summer. I obtained about $30K in credit.. my big ones are 2 citibank accounts for $9K each and MBNA line of credit for $6,100. I have providian $3K and capital one $2400. Besides that I have a few retail....spiegel..$1400, and recently got target $200 and $300 Victoria Secret. Macy's should be on its way. I started with roughly $5K total in the summer. I keep my balances low but since XMas my citibank card is at 50% available on one of them. I am trying to pay that down quickly. roni
Re: TX and DAve Junum is running a special now. Go to there website and check them out. Click http://www.junum.com You can definitely dispute something that is paid. The idea is to get the item off. I explained that in my first response please re-read that. I will let everyone know how my mortgage goes. dont worry. roni
roni what was the strategy he told you about? or is it something you can't share? hell at this point i'd be happy with a FICO of 600 christi
Strategy... The strategy he told me is not really that difficult. In fact, it is something that I have been saying for a few months now. Jim tried it but for some reason it didnot work for him. Opening new accounts lowered his score for some reason. Maybe it was the bk? So I guess it has some limitations. He told me for my own personal credit situtation, the defaulted student loans and many inquiries, to get as many tradelines and high limits as possible and then stop cold turkey with inquiries. Now, I didnot do a good job with stopping the inquiries. I had a few slip thru since NOvember when I stopped applying. But for some reason all my creditors pulled transunion or Experian. I was looking over my hard copy of inquiries at equifax and I only had 3 in the last 6 months. He told me in 8 -12 months I would have 700. Ididnot believe it honestly. But I wanted to believe it and I did what he said. Of course he told me to get as much delinquent off as possible. It took me about 8 months to clean up my credit. I think this proves that patience and persistence is the key to getting higher scores. And Always remember to Pray. Good LUck ! roni PS. I believe that opening new accounts hurt you when You have many delinquencies. They use your past performance against you with your new accounts. I read that in a book. But when I was able to delete many of my delinquencies my scores continued to increase dispite the inquiries. Over time the mulltiple "pays as agreed" helped my score tremendously. I think the key is to get the initial credit, clean report, get more credit, clean the report more and then stop and let the credit sit and mature. I think my story proves it doesnot really take years just knowledge of the credit reports and system. Go over your reports and pick them apart to get a maximum score.
