Ways to increase credit score?

Question

My b/f & I are currently living with his parents with a total monthly income of $3,900 Net and have no rent to pay. I plan to move into a rental home by october to save to buy a home within 1 yr. I have some debt that includes

Collections Agency (Apts) $2072

Credit card $280 limit $300

Collection (med bill) $538

Truck $855

I will finish paying this by the end of August, it would be sooner but we spend about $250/wk on entertainment expenses. My point is that I want to have at least a 700 credit score before I buy a house within a yr. What should I do to reach my goal?

Answer 1

pay off everything as fast as you can but keep the credit card active and charge a tank of gas monthly and pay it off monthly and your scores will rebound

Answer 2

you should pay on time try to avoid overdue and pay more than your minimum and try to start off paying the easiest ones first and avoid getting back in debt with them

vote best answer!!!!

Answer 3

You can use credit repair agency to fix it - for example this one - http://creditreport.imess.net - They can clean lots of such bad stuff from your credit report - and do it much faster than yourself, so your credit will go up fast.

Answer 4

First pay off your credit cards.  Carrying balances of more than 30% of your available limit hurts your score.  Paying them off will give you a quick boost.

Second, negotiate delete for pay agreements with those collections accounts.   If the debt is more than 3 years old, offer 25%; 2 or 3 years old, offer 50%; less than 2 years, offer 75%.  Lump sum gets the best deal.  Payment plans have to be short term.  

Get any settlement agreement in writing and keep it, along with your payment proof, forever.  Do not give the collector direct access to your bank account.

Paying old debt will not improve your score unless you get it deleted.  In fact, if you don't have a delete for pay agreement, paying old debt will actually lower your score.  The older the item, the less impact on your score.  When you pay old debt, it becomes a current transaction and counts more in your score calculation, including the negatives.

You will need at least a 24 month consist, on time payment history to improve your score.  I don't know what your score is now, but you will likely need more than one year to get to 700.

You should also be putting aside money every payday toward a downpayment and closing costs.  If you are spending $250/wk on entertainment expenses, you will never be able to afford a house.  That's 28% of your monthly income.

Answer 5

Pay off all your collection debt.  This is the worst thing on your credit report besides a bankruptcy.  Keep current with all of your other credit card payments, even if it is the minimum.  Don't have anyone pull your credit report because I was told this lowers your credit score too.

Answer 6

$250.00 a week on "entertainment" expenses is beyond rediculous and it makes me wonder just what kind of entertainment we are talking about. Even so with that income and no rent to pay there is no reason to have stuff in collections especially not the dollar amounts you are talking about. If people would just pay their bills they would not have bad credit would they now?

Answer 7

Dispute the collections accounts with the credit bureaus to see if they actually own the debt.

If they do, contact them in writing and ask them to do what is called payment for deletion. Offer to pay them in full in exchange for them removing the account from your credit reports. Get the agreement in writing.

Cut back on your entertainment expenses and kill these debts off in no time.

You might want to check my profile for a site I run that has some free advice on how to repair your credit.

Answer 8

you should go to http://www.cellsware.info/restorecredit . this company totally helped me out with everything!

Answer 9

The collections are going to really hurt you on your credit.  And $250/week on "entertainment" is ridiculous for someone who says they want to buy a house in a year.  Do you realize that's $13,000 a year?