Excellent credit few months prior to filing for Bankruptcy ch. 7 in 4/2003 which was discharged 7/2003, we both had 700+ scores before. My score post BK (8/2003) shows 513 (EQ) while my wife's post BK (8/2003) shows 583 (EQ) Just got approved for American Pacific Bank secured card for $300 limit 1 Honda Finance auto loan that was included in BK but never late, we still have 2 1/2 years to pay off. I told Honda to please keep reporting to our credit report files which they already submitted paperwork to go ahead and post balance as well as report paying on time. We want to get mortgage around 2 years post-BK, so I have approx 18 months to see how we can improve our scores. How can we improve scores, we're looking for maximum possible raise of our scores in order to obtain better mortgage rates in Early 2005! Thanks in advance! Thomas Gagliano
I was in the EXACT situation as you and was looking and still am for the same goal. AMPB was a great start. After 9 months they will increase your deposit up to $2000 by 25% and they will not pull a hard inquiry doing so. $2000=$2500 and then $1 for a $1 I would open a few more accounts as soon as possible. You don't want the inquirys hurting your score when you apply for a mortgage. FICO will not count inquirys after 12 months. Take the FICO point hit now on inquirys and get as many positive accounts as possible. Do not apply for anything you can't get. Many banks are not BK friendly no matter what. Find out which ones are not and don't apply. I would open a Orchard Bank secured card also right now. $200 deposit will get you in the door. They report the same to the CRA's as AMPB. But not as often. After those 2 accounts you should get unsecured pre-approved Capital One and Providian. Take both of those. After about 6 months of having a Orchard secured account, Orchard will send you a pre-approved Orchard unsecured. That should get you 5 accounts opened pretty quick. Merrick Bank is also pretty BK friendly but wait about 7 months from now to try for that. I would look to get around 5-7 positive accounts 12 months prior to trying for a mortgage. If you get a Capital One card max it out within a couple of months after receiving it. They do not report the credit limit but they will report your highest balance as the credit limit. If you get a Providian credit card be very careful with it and use it as a positive credit account. Don't carry much of a balance on it. APR sucks. You should be able to get a Target card also probably $200 limit to start. 7 positive accounts was the magic number for me. Good luck! And keep everything current.
