hdporter

Basically same wisdom to share here as already expressed. It's a given that if you omit the information and somehow it becomes known, you could see an immediate denial. You never know what private lending databases might be out there, so never presume that past history is dead and gone forever. With the credit history you disclose, no lender is going to look askance at a 10 year old Repo. That your credit is close to entirely clean since is a strong testament that you're very likely a reliable borrower.

Any mortgage company will consider this debt to have been resolved, with no balance outstanding. The key hurdle you face is the impact of this reporting on your mortgage scores (FICO 2/4/5). The impact may be made harsher by GM Financial continuing update the status of the tradeline with a "Charge Off" notation. Based upon past discussion, such reporting is accurate (merely noting that at some point in the past a charge off occurred). However, such monthly annotation of a tradeline is not the rule, but instead the exception. This will likely penalize you because FICO scoring of adverse tradelines is rather simplistic; it scores negative information more harshly if it's been updated recently. I don't have any advice on what you might do to remedy the tradeline reporting. However, it's important that you secure your mortgage scores so that you have a reasonable idea of your rate prospects. Mortgage scores can be purchased as part of a "3B" 3-bureau report from myFICO. There are recent CB threads that discuss other sources of mortgage scores, some of which may be free of charge.

The blacked out lines in the post are links to screen captures of the tradeline on his reports. The links do work if you click on them. The debt appears to have been settled at less than face value. The creditor is reporting the fact that the account was charged off with a CO every month. The account presumably is scheduled for removal at the 7 years post DOFD, Feb 2017. OP should obtain hard copies of CRA reports, but I don't expect that they will reveal any additional information.

I'm going to assume that there isn't a current delinquency notation, but instead that they're continuing to report a CO notation month to month. That's not the same as reporting it late on a monthly basis. A charge off is a one time event. Creditors have typically reflected that status only in the month of occurrence, but with growing frequency some have taken to report the status for each subsequent month. It seems that you're hoping to reach out to the collection agency that at one time was assigned the account for collection. Presumably the account has since been withdrawn from that collector. If so, there's nothing that agency can handle at this point. I assume your desire is to settle the debt so that it won't continue to report monthly with an adverse status. Unless you successfully negotiate a "pay for delete", putting an end to the monthly adverse status update won't really impact your credit scores appreciably. The damage has been done and that will continue to reflect in your credit report and credit score.

Inflation has largely been driven by covid-related impediments to the supply chain. This will resolve itself and, historically, doesn't give rise to an inflationary spiral. On the other hand, residential real estate price hikes will ultimately play out in the greater economy. The MA home we purchased 2 years ago was just reappraised for a refi and came in with 45% above our purchase price (essentially 20% annually for 2 successive years). That's simply insane on the surface, but reflects a continuing short supply relative to demand, and a willingness of buyers to bite the increase, softened by low rates. If mortgage rates ultimately climb by 2% (into a more "normal" 4%-5% range), there's finally going to be some giveback on real estate prices (I'll suggest 20%, maybe even 30%). Fortunately, home prices haven't been stoked by the type of speculative buying on thin equity that was characteristic of the 2008 housing crisis. Such a fallback may prove healthy for the overall market. In any case, I don't see a new housing crisis on the horizon. Bottom line, I believe it will be housing costs (which are high, even if there's some price softening) that will drive a lasting notch up in CPI. Firms will ultimately have to hike wages to retain workers in light of a very low unemployment rate. But overall price inflation will occur in a moderated fashion. We're probably looking at settling in around 3%-4% annual inflation for the coming few years. (That forecast and a buck will get you a small coffee at McD's)

If you're saying that you currently have no open credit cards, that's definitely impeding your credit journey. Unless there's something unattractive about the PenFed card, I suggest rushing to take advantage of the offer. I can't imagine there being a better "rebuilder" card. Longer term, you're going to want to latch onto a decent cashback card (or 2, 3, or 4 ... more?). But given where you are now, this is truly a "gold"en opportunity.

My threshold for AA miles (of which we have about 2 mil on tap) is 1.4 cents per mile. We tend to only redeem for international travel (which, given the state of things, hasn't happened for a few years). Still, this past week I finally had good cause to redeem 170k for travel this coming Thanksgiving. We're doing a week at a timeshare in Puerto Vallerta (this property gives "timeshare" a good rep), followed by a week's cruise out of LA. I still don't understand how 2 coach RT's could price so high, but the fare came in on AA at $8000+. 150k was the substitute price in FF miles. For another 20k miles, we were able to confirm the return from LAX in 1st. We're in for a sweet time come November, and gonna love collapsing into "big front seats" for the return home

The convention for cash back cards has been that a "point" translates to a penny in rewards. But as of late, some banks have made the term "more flexible" where, under certain circumstances, redeeming points results in less than a penny (2/3 cent or even 1/2 cent) Bottom line, to properly assess a card and its worth, you really need to read through to understand redemption options (in detail).

Congrats on wedging your way back in with Chase and BA. Consider yourself to have "won" the credit repair game. In the big picture, you're not missing out on that much with Amex. While Amex Blue Cash Preferred is an ideal grocery card, dedicated use of a Citi Custom Cash for groceries is even better once you net out the Blue annual fee. Belatedly, dump those three monthly fee cards. You note that your "average age of open accounts" will be hit. Just remember that's not a FICO measurement. (And please don't tell me you're trying to optimize your "Skankage" score!) Your FICO scores and your overall average account age will benefit from the closed accounts as they continue to report for up to 10 years post closure.

Addressing just this statement, it's unfortunate that most don't reach out for advice here until after everything has swirled down the tubes. The fact is that every issuer has incentive to avoid a charge-off and if you constructively work with them when it's first apparent you won't be able to keep up with payments, it's possible to avoid the credit score killer of a charge off notation. Of course, you still have to stomach some significant bumps in the road. It's necessary to enter into a hardship agreement with the creditor, and some creditors won't consider discussions until you're 60-days, or even 90-days late. Once you enter into a hardship agreement, most creditors will close your account (if not closed already) and typically require that you reapply for an account when you're back on your feet. I suspect this puts off a fair share of "hardship" candidates, who instead decide that they'll try to bring the account current so as not to suffer closure, but don't have a real action plan that would be successful in that. The truth is, accepting closure of the account is a far better alternative then ultimately having the account charge off and being closed in any case. If you permit the account to be closed and enter into a realistic hardship repayment agreement, it's possible to make reduced payments without the risk of default/charge off. And, if you're prepared to resume normal payments on the closed account under the account agreement terms upon expiration of the hardship agreement (and any approved extensions), then you can successfully return the tradeline to a positive status. This means that after any adverse reporting ages off after 7 years, you'll be left with a clean tradeline with a long history (starting with the original open date) that will persist on your report for at least another 3 years. The account goes from being a negative drag on your credit score, to being a strong positive contributor. If, instead, you don't enter into a hardship agreement and the account ultimately is charged off, the best you can hope for is that the account drops 7 years after DOFD. But there's no positive tail to the account; the benefit of any prior history is lost forever. ------ When our finances went tits up in 1999, as much as I was inclined to duck creditors I'm thankful that at least one creditor (I think it was Chase) went out of their way to posture themselves as wanting to assist and help me understand the potential benefit of entering into a hardship agreement. (They also emphasized the importance of setting a payment amount I was confident I could keep up with.) That set me on a path where I initiated contact with other creditors to explore the option of similar hardship agreements. Where they wouldn't bite, I'd hang up and try again a month later. In this manner, I was able to avoid any charge offs. Of course, I had to suck up closure of these accounts and for the next 5 years, the only replacement cards available to me were Capital One's $500 "rebuilder" and Providian. That made for some lean credit times. However, as of 2004, the absence of any charge offs on my credit, along with the continued reporting of the hardship account history (including 4 years of recent clean history), means that my credit scores were back to 680+ and, once again, I could get a card with strong terms from most any issuer. I think that's the "Gold standard" when it comes to rebuilding. A little proactive management of a f'd situation can keep anyone from having to start over from scratch.

If this practice is still reasonably commonplace, people around here are being surprisingly tight lipped about having benefited. I don't think I've seen any discussion of such an adjustment having occurred over on the otherwise very talky myFICO forum. So, you'll understand that I hold my doubt that creditors are "still doing them" ... I would love for such doubt to be persuasively proven to be unfounded.

I've had more than a couple of "skin flint" friends who closely question any purchase in excess of $5. I have respect for them (even if I question their sensibilities to a degree). Consequently, I never am put off by the question of "Why would I buy this?" provided they're open to reason. If you want to know your mortgage rate prospects, you have to choke up a fee (you need all 3 scores ... 1 will only ball park, but can be very misleading). And if there's a potential inaccuracy with any of your 3 reports that impacts your scores, you want to flag that as early on as possible.

I'm not taking the time to review the Rule verbiage just now (it's been at least 2 years since I looked at it). However, I think you're potentially setting up an inflated expectation here. My familiarity with Rule 5000 is that it merely permits a creditor to reset an account status to "current" without all of the payment deficiency having been caught up, based upon a series of consecutive monthly payments. It doesn't not reset/remove past delinquency reporting in any respect or manner. And, the truth is, I haven't seen any anecdotes of a credit card issuer extending a Rule 5000 adjustment in over a decade now. (It's not mandatory, merely optional.) To @Crunchyhippo: Multiple delinquency notations on an account that was formerly "clean" can easily tank FICO scores 200+ points. And, once on your report, time is a very slow healer. It can take as long as 4 years of clean history to restore a score to the upper 600's once a major delinquency (90+ days) reports. For this reason, whenever one suffers a setback that can be anticipated to result in more than a month of delinquency status, it can be advisable to proactively contact your issuers, temporarily suspend charging privileges, and enter into a comfortable hardship payment agreement on any outstanding balances. Potentially, the creditor can suspend delinquency reporting provided you make all payments as specified in that agreement.

Spot on. You only want to be an AU on accounts that are clean and have modest utilization. When that's no longer the case, the AU status hurts more than it helps and it's time to sever the AU relationship and dispute the account off your credit reports. You can always restore the AU relationship at a later date if the account is restored to a beneficial status.

I'll suggest you've likely attained this much through the FICO 8 score and the review of your credit reports. Your mortgage scores won't reveal much more on this count. That said, your currently have no idea what your mortgage FICO scores are, or what you middle score is that will be the basis from which your mortgage rate will be determined. While your FICO is running in the vicinity of 730, you can't currently pin your mortgage score more accurately than to say it's likely somewhere in the range of 650-800. That suggests a 30-year rate ranging from 3% to 4.5%. Purchasing your scores now for a one time fee of approx $50-$60 will allow you to hone in on a more accurate rate expectation. The score analysis you receive will give you a good clue as to whether there's anything in your report that might be finer tuned to boost your mortgage scores. A middle FICO mortgage score of 740+ will generally get you the best 30-year rate of 3% at present. Whether there's any improvement to be had between now and you're ready to pull the trigger on an app, in your shoes I would at least pull another set of scores right before you apply so again you have a firm idea of where you sit. That's just a suggestion; you know best what suits your needs.