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not great news. this sucks. thanks for the replies.

I am going for a home buy in 6 weeks. I just did my taxes and it seems I owe about 5.5K. Yeah for me! OK so I don't have the money to throw down all at once to clear the debt, but I will be able to clear it out over about 7 months after the lending process is complete. My issue is that I am worried that having this tax bill over my head during the buy will cause some issues in the lending process. Am I correct in this? I have not filled taxes yet. Is it in my interest to not file till after my home buy, which will be after taxes are due so I would need to file an extension? What are some of your thoughts here? Otherwise everything else in my buying process should be straight forward and approved. Few notes: VA Loan, 700+ credit scores, 10% utilization , 32% debt-to-income thanks.

darn.

Found this on another page with references my above comment.

I want to monitor my credit, and see at least something close to a FICO score. I have read multiple posts regarding this topic, many are really old too. Can anyone suggest the best service? I have a free CreditKarma account. Should I pay the extra money to them for everything they offer? I have looked into Scorewatch, but I read others are not too happy with this service. I also looked at myFICO.com, but they seem really expensive. Is it worth the extra expense? I understand it is hard (impossible) to get an all three agency all-in-one service. I don't need this (have recent CR pulls from all 3). I just want to know which will give me the most accurate TL reporting, along with the best FAKO score. My end goal is to fix our credit enough (not too terrible now thankfully) to get a good rate on a mortgage. If I have read correctly, there are different scoring algorithms per loan type, so one that focuses on mortgage would be a helpful suggestion. Thanks.

HoustonLynn, this is how it looks in more detail as there is actually three levels of this.. First Loans (7 total TL's) from 03/01 to 03/04. Six of them are listed as "Sallie Mae". The seventh is listed as "Sallie Mae Servicing". All have a status now of "Transferred,closed/Never late." In 03/04, all where consolidated into one loan listed as "Sallie Mae". This account was transferred to another lender in 11/11 and has a status of "Transferred,closed". This loan does show 90 days starting in 01/10 and shows 180 days for a few months through 10/10. The final current loans (two TL's) are listed as "SLSC/EFC". TL is clean. I wish I had more uplifting news, but the fact that Sallie Mae was the original lender is not terribly promising. BUT...I will point you toward a thread that has some info that MAY help you (see below.) Basically, their policy in reporting is 2-fold, per a letter I received from Sallie Mae's Office of the Customer Advocate: They don't report a borrower late until 90 days, as a sort of grace window to avoid damaging credit history. After that, it's stuck like glue. (This one is the key.) They have a policy to ACCURATELY REPORT THE MOST RECENT 24 MONTHS of payment history. This implies, to me, that anything older than 2 years MAY get a blind eye turned to the dispute and, thus, the lates deleted. MAYBE. You'd have to test it. And you COULD lose the TL altogether, as has been mentioned under "unintended consequences" above. Just be aware that this lender is known to be one of the more stubborn ones for reporting (personal experience, here!) My original lender was Citibank (for consolidation) and Sallie Mae bought it in 2011, so that's why I asked. IF you had a retroactive deferment or forbearance that would have covered those lates, you'll hear conflicting info as to whether the reporting is supposed to be retroactively amended. My experience is that Sallie Mae will be steadfast in saying that the reporting, itself, does not change, since it was "accurate at the time." My Sallie Mae situation was ultimately different, though, and I won't bore you with the details, since I don't know if the retroactive deferment/forbearance thing applies to you. Try this info: http://creditboards.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=526360&p=5006545 Also, your new TL that reads "SLSC/EFC" is puzzling me, but I'm guessing you know more about it than I do. The basic info I found online points to this not being an actual lender, or perhaps not lender-specific...? Was it paid or are you paying it? You don't necessarily have to answer that, just know that federal student loans have no SOL. (I assume these aren't private loans...?) If it's a loan that fell through the cracks in a transfer, it will ALMOST assuredly come back to haunt you at some point...so beware of any false sense of security, if that be the case. But if I'm working on some WAY off-base info here, feel free to disregard. Just didn't wanna skip the info, in case you need it along the line. I figured Sallie Mae would be a hard one to remove. Doesn't hurt to try though! What would be the worst thing to happen here? I could loos the trade line with bad marks. Not so bad.

Not a raise, just been paying back a private family loan for a while and a while and a while. That has ended THANKFULLY! I have never tried for a mortgage before now. I have been pre-qualified for the $417 rate, just want to bring up my credit score so I can get a better interest rate. A quarter percentage point will cost me 20K over the loan life!

Ask questions, get answers. Love it. Thanks to all who added in. The high CC balances, really they aren't high at all (all 7 accounts have max limit of no more than 5K total), just I never cared to pay them off (easily could have, just was playing to hard.... yes and now i'm paying "more" for it). Or better I did not understand how credit worked completely and I thought just paying min balances was good (enough) to build credit. But you are right about one thing, I have little savings (2k-ish). Just recently my income opened to 3.5K EXTRA each month. Time to make changes. Pay off EVERYTHING (revolving) and buy a house! HoustonLynn, this is how it looks in more detail as there is actually three levels of this.. First Loans (7 total TL's) from 03/01 to 03/04. Six of them are listed as "Sallie Mae". The seventh is listed as "Sallie Mae Servicing". All have a status now of "Transferred,closed/Never late." In 03/04, all where consolidated into one loan listed as "Sallie Mae". This account was transferred to another lender in 11/11 and has a status of "Transferred,closed". This loan does show 90 days starting in 01/10 and shows 180 days for a few months through 10/10. The final current loans (two TL's) are listed as "SLSC/EFC". TL is clean.

Hi All, i've been lurking and reading for a while now. Answers to the following questions are eluding me. I thought maybe some of you veterans can help with answers. My wife and I are looking to apply for a VA mortgage very soon (within 90 days). Currently our FICO credit has come back in the low 600's. Perviously it was 700+, but 2014 brought two new cars, two new cards and a few over limits/late's due to sudden job loss. All plummeting our scores. Luckily only Chase Slate listed a single 30 day late. All accounts now are up-to-date and under limit. 1) My overall utilization of available credit is in the 90% on all 7 revolving accounts. I know this is probably my #1 issue. Perviously (within 2 month) a few where over 100%, but I had those back under within 30 days of over. I plan to pay them all down to the 80% range (two smallest down to $0) within a week from now. I could pay them down to 50% levels, but I am afraid that the cards (specifically, C1 and BBY) will lower my available credit if I make too large of payment too soon. Is there a fool-proof way of reducing utilization to 50% (asap), but not taking a limit reduction hit (effectively killing my 50% desired utilization) Second, from what I have read, its seems that my best option is to keep all cards similar in utilization %. Is this the best way to achieve a score increase, or will a snowball method work fine. 2) With my mortgage app going in soon, would it hurt or benefit me to ask for credit increases on some revolving accounts with the goal to have a larger available credit utilization? 3) I have a student loan. In 2010 I went as far as 120 late, but did not default. This account was brought current and has stayed current since 2010. In 2011 the account was purchased by another lender (says so on my report). The new lenders TL is clean. Is it worth it to try and get the old TL removed, or is it worth the TL's time in service to keep it active? 4) Similar to the above question, I have a BBY card account that at one time was via C1, then sold to CITI. Should I attempt to get the old TL (9m history) removed? It has some OTL history. 5) Should I push to get an 81 month account that was at one time over limit by 25% and reported 120 days late, but then was brought back current and paid off, then closed in 2008 removed? Or is its age worth more than its negatives? Thanks for you input. ~ Cesar

Frank, I agree with you that it is the case. As for taxes, yes I have filed every year and have perfect records. So when I go for a credit card, what do I tell them. I so afraid to tell them self employed now. After my Amex rejection they just said sorry and hung up, no chance to offer income verification.

Really? Why exactly? I carry a US passport, I pay US taxes, I have a US phone number, I have all my mail sent to a US residence I previously lived at and do live at when stateside. I have a US State active drivers license and registered car. Is there some law that states I have to have residency for a certain amount of time a year?

I don't plan to tell them where I live. I have a US mailing address and phone number.

I have been reading till blind the past few days and have decided to see what you o'ye wise board members have to say about my situation. We (wife and I) currently live in Europe and will be moving back stateside within 6-9 months. The plan is to get home and buy a car and eventually a house within a year. So we need some credit! Problem is we have odd credit and money flow. We both have 700 scores with only school loans (40k each, 2 years clean payments) on our CR's. When we moved to Europe we cancelled all our cards and payed off all the debt we had. So technically we have good credit, but no credit. She W-2's about 90k USD a year (currently in Euros as she works for a EU corporation). I am self employed the bad way. I mean as far as I don't have a LLC or anything. I work for multiple US clients who 1099 me for about 50k a year (last three years 1040). I also run multiple websites and make about 50k a year from them. All my income is deposited between Paypal and a Chase account in the US. I have tried to gain credit from a CU in my home town that I have been a member of since 99, but they denied me due to fraud prevention measures having to do with me not being able to come in show myself and ID. I tried to get a Amex card but was denied. I later read that my self employment was like a .50 cal to the brain on that one. So within a week I have two hard-pulls and still no credit to build credit with. So how do I do it? Who will give me a credit card? How can I provide proof of income without paycheck stubs? I am not apposed to getting one or more secured lines of credit(cards), but where is the best place to go and for sure be approved so no more hard pulls show without gaining something? Should I try the pre-approval methods I read about on the board? My wife will also try soon to get some cards, but I fear she will be in the same line of failure I have seen since she is not employed by a US company. From what I read to get US credit you have to be employed by a US company. We both had C1 cards before (closed almost 4 years ago), should I try to reopen them? Thanks for your help.

Perfect. thanks!

My wife has a loan for 41k @ 3.5%. I have a loan for 38k @ 3.25%. We have a total of $675 a month to pay towards both at this time. I am wondering which loan should be payed first. My thought is to pay my wife's with all of the balance after my minimum payment (675-232=443) since her interest rate is greater and will over time incur the most costs. Then after hers is payed off (9 years), I can apply the full amount to mine and pay it off quickly. Does this sound like a good idea? Or should i pay them off the opposite way (faster to get rid of the smaller one and improve credit) Or is it just best to split the $675 between both our accounts equally and wait the 13 years to pay both off near the same time. Thanks. Are there any dual loan calculators that anyone knows about. Something that will show me each's payments and balances over time?