credit score?

Question

My credit score is 509 and in a year or 2, I would like to get approve for a home loan. If I start to pay off my debt which is no more than $6,000 how soon will my credit score go up between now and 2yrs. or what do you suggest that I should do to get my credit score to be at least 600, and how long will it take if I start now.

Answer 1

You should be fine to buy a home in 2 years if you do everything correctly to improve your credit score. As for how long exactly will it take your score to improve, this is always a very hard question as to how much time will it take to improve your credit score, because credit scoring has so many different variables involved. Anyhow, here are some tips to improve your scores:
1. Check your credit at annualcreditreport.com to find out what is on your credit and to check to make sure there are not errors.
2. Pay off all collections, catch up any and all accounts that you are behind on (if any)
3. Pay down all credit cards to under 50% (preferably under 30%) of your available limit. You can ask your creditors for limit increases as well to help achieve the ideal balance percentages.
4. Do not close paid off credit card accounts. Leave credit card accounts open for 2 reasons (longer credit history and gives you better ratio of available credit to credit being used.
5. Make sure all of your payments on everything on your credit are paid on time from here on out.
6. If your credit is very, very bad you may want to look into a credit repair company.
7. You can also try the piggybacking method where you have a friend of family member add you as an authorized user to a credit card of theirs with a long excellent credit history and this way you can gain instant credit improvement.
8. Read the blog located below to find out more information about credit, credit scoring, and credit building/rebuilding.

Answer 2

There are several ways of improving your credit score. Improve your debt ratio. That is the amount owed to the credit limit. The next thing you do is if you have credit cards, pay more than the minimum due, pay on or before your due date, allow the company to give you an increase in your credit limit,but DO NOT USE IT! This increases your ability to pay and decreases the rating from high risk to moderate risk and so on. After you have made on time payments for 6 months, call the company and request a reduced % rate on your monthly balance. Never leave home with your credit cards!
The most important thing to do is find out what is on your credit report. Dispute anything that you do not recognize. Keep track of these things every few months and you can increase that score in about one year. Possibly to 200 pts higher. If all of this does not work,find a financial professional that can help with bill consolidation.

Answer 3

If you have access to your credit report (and every year you have access to one free credit report form each of the three reporting companies) You can see where your credit dings are.
Credit scores are based on a few things.
The first and most important thing that a credit report looks as is - Do you pay as promised?
They don't care if you pay early - or if you pay more than they asked for - they just want you to pay what you are suppossed to - on time. Never, Never be late on a payment again.
Other people have mantioned not to close accounts - they are correct - one of the best things on my credit report is a couch I bought on revolving credit 10 years ago (at 23% interest rate OUCH!) the account is still open and has never had a late.
I have had a couple of late payments in my past - but late payments are like boats sailing away from shore - as time passes they seem less signifigant until they are a little dot on the horizon and then they dissappear.
The best thing you can do to boost your score is have two rows of green boxes under every account on your credit report in two years - every green box means your paid what you were suppossed to. Then lenders say - look here is a person that can be trusted to pay us back - Good luck!

Answer 4

Your credit score could go up in just a few months if you start paying on your debt on time every time. Especially if you are able to get some of the items paid off. In two years, you could potentially have a credit score in the 700s. Good luck.

Answer 5

Have you pulled your own credit reports and made sure that all the negative stuff is accurate? If not, challenge it and ask the credit bureaus to investigate and remove erroneous information. Next, don't open any new lines of credit and do not make any major purchases like a car if you want a house within 2 years. Pay stuff off, close accounts that you no longer use and ask the creditor to close it and report it as "closed at consumer's request" to the credit bureaus.

Answer 6

First of all, do not miss ANY payments and do NOT make any late payments. Do NOT close any accounts. Do NOT open any new accounts, or apply for credit. If you do all of this, your credit score should improve. I look at credit all day long in consumer lending. Do NOT pay anyone to make your credit better. Just do everything "right" between now and then and it should make a difference.

Good Luck!!

Answer 7

Another important point is to start paying off your debts ONE at a time. If you can't make all the payments, pay off the lowest one, and make min. payments on everything else. Once the lowest is paid off, do that for the next lowest.