For the past year I have been working with Amy to get her credit to a point that she can qualify for a mortgage. A little history: divorced, mother of two, working full time, plus has a small home business, paying $1,300 rent and wants to own her own home. As part of the divorce agreement, she ended up with responsibility of paying all the credit cards. They were not huge balances, but a dozen accounts. She couldn’t make all the payments, so she stopped paying most of them.
That is good news and bad news. The good news is the ones that she was paying reported positively to the credit bureaus, the bad news the others were hurting the credit scores a lot faster. The fixing process can be overwhelming. I coached her to start working on the smallest problems first. $4,800 later, all the derogatory credit has been resolved.
We started with a mid score of 528 to being 120 points higher. She has made two offers on homes and is getting close to becoming a homeowner. Her monthly payment will certainly be less than her mortgage payment. Anyone can get to credit fitness, once they are committed, just like Amy.
Do Your Buyers Need Help with Their Credit Fitness? By: Monica O’Neill
