     Don | Monday, November 01, 1999 - 04:29 am 
I would like to thank Christine and all of the
regular contributors to this site (notably the
old one) for all of your experiences and advise.
I just closed on my house (my first) and would
not have been able to have down it without the
information that i've been able to gleen from
everyone's input.
I strongly recommmend that everyone who reads
this take the time to go back and read through
all of the previous postings and responses. There
is enough information there to give your the
directions you need.
My story for those that are interested.
A year ago September, my wife and I started
looking at houses. I knew our credit was bad, so
I went to a mortage broker. He pulled a copy of
our credit reports. I had a '92 bankruptcy, a
pair of outstanding judgements, a couple of
outstanding collection items, a couple of loans
(but no credit cards) and one of those was
currently past due. My FICO score was a 587.
My wife who didn't have the bankruptcy,
judgements, or collection items, actually had a
score of 582. He said that it actually wasn't
too bad, we could find a sub-prime loan at 9.5%
(market was 7.5% at that time) and 10% down, plus
closing costs. Since we hadn't found a house yet,
I decided to see what I could do about cleaning
up the credit histories first.
By reading all of the postings and responses
here, and understanding that we are working with
our best guesses and working in an arena with
no firm rules, I was able to apply what made
sense to me and my particular situation.
It has taken me about a year, but I did just
close on our 8.0% mortage (which is now the
current rate here) with only a little but down.
(The house was 102k, but they would only approve
us for 96.4k, ratios and all that). But I did
it at a reasonable rate. When I asked the loan
processor what was my FICO score anyway, she
told me it was a 647.
I would like to remind New Yorkers that in case
you didn't know it, a paid-off judgement is
removed from your reports after 5 years instead
of the full 7.
And do NOT be afraid to continually hound these
credits bureaus until you get the information
reproted correctly, no matter how long or how
many tries it takes.
And go back and read all of those postings on
responses. All of the information that anyone
needs is already there.
And thanks again Christine for making this site
available and being a part of making this happen.
Don |
