Can I improve my credit score quickly?

Well there is no sense looking back. Its time to look forward. With all your hard work you will be fine. I have learned from some of my mistakes to. Guess it is all about growing older and wiser. lol

Great advice from everyone, especially Samantha.

Granted, fixing your credit does not happen overnight, but its a simple strategy. Ideally, it would be best to have low balances and pay less interest on everything, having high credit limits is a good thing, showing companies that you use only a small percentage of your available credit.

Its when people max out cards or go over limit impacts your scores significantly. More significant than that is closed or charged off accounts. Its good to have open accounts because it takes years to show creditors that you have good history.

Paying minimums may be an alternative, but what I suggest is having a separate budget for all your debts. The quickest way to zero may need to be established. It will give you great leverage on your abilities to pay everything off quicker.

Good Luck with your situation, and welcome to the forum.

Good ,points alaska. Working hard to fix your credit is a task sometimes overwhelming but if steadily worked on the end results are wonderful.

It is definately a long drawn out process that takes time and dedication, it is sometimes good to take a break from the stress of it all and not look at the results, then you will see some type of result, good or bad, hopefully good.

Everyone these days has too much stress. I am glad to see that you take a break from time to time. We all need breathers.

i have been wanting to raise my score from 689 to 731, in order to refinance at the lowest rate possible, i had 11 credit cards open, most of them 1k-8k limits with no balances.
i closed 8 of them and 2 have balances, of 5200 and 19k, so my wife has agreed to transfer the 19k to a zero % offer on to her credit and that'll free my credit debt up in order to raise my score i hope, am i wright?
also my credit said percentage of credit currently available 78%, now isn't that basicly saying that i'm only using 22% of my credit available, i have been trying since april to raise my score from 611 and have only gotton it up to 689.
i had a card that i haven't used in 3 yrs, suddenly it had a balnce of $30 i called the company and they were gonna let me dispute the charges, i received a letter of a cleared balance and assumed all was done with well 3 mnths later i receive a bill with 2 mnth late fees bringing it to $118, i just paid them and i think thats waht hurt my score, they left derrogatory statement saying over 90 days late, this al started last nov and i paid them in feb.
what can to bring my score up quickly?

Most lenders view 720 as the highest credit score an individual can obtain for the best pricing. Some other other lenders mark it at 700.

One mistake is to 'closing' out credit cards. It's better to pay them off AND leave them open. Some credit card companies are NOTORIOUS for DELETING your whole credit history from your credit file after you CLOSE the account with them.

You should always pay down the smallest accounts first. Then go after the big ones. Having a balance less than 35% of your limit is considered ideal. Going over 50% maybe considered a max out for your FICO score.

I would recommend that you dispute the account for the late payments. If they do not update the account, then I would recommend that you threaten them with legal action. Some companies just don't care, and you will need to dispute the account entirely.

If you apply for FHA then you can get a loan up to 95% for cashout, and 96.5% w/out a cashout. FHA allows low scores down to 620 to receive a really good rate.

Please post back if you have any questions or updates.

Thanks
Robert

Hi!
Banker0679, I wished I'd found you sooner, I had already started the process, with the balance transfer of 19k from my credit to my wifes, the interest rate was 12.94 on 11k of that and 8500 of the 19k was a zero which really sucked cause all my pymts only appled to the zero which kept the interest accruing on the 11k, and the 5200 I'm gonna keep, it's a 0%.interest.
Thank you, Cindy

Cindy Welcome to Mortgagefit!

If you're not buying a home or looking to take a loan out, then you can do transfer balances. I would always take advantage of the 0% APR. Just be careful of the large transfer fees.

Thanks
Robert

I'm trying to bring my score up in order to refinance at a better interest rate, I have a mortgage of 357,000, thats why I need my score to go up, my home tax with Insurance is 420 mnthly if added to my mortgage, and I'd like my interest rate to be as low as 5.1% with a apr 5.38% making my pymt around 2420, I've done most of the math, it's just I need my score to come up and waiting for the rates to come down again, Thank you

Hi Cindy welcome to our Forum!

There are many things you can do to bring up your score.
1. Pay down your revolving debts to 35% of the credit limit
Start with your lowest limits first!
2. Dispute erroneous items on your credit report to help lift your score.

What is your current score?
What score do you need to achieve?

Thanks
Robert

My current score is 689, and I just found another problem, I got a driving ticket back in May and I was gonna apeal the citation, well I found out the town I recieved the ticket in on wants the fine monies, I didn't pay it cause I was gonna go to a higher court of apeals, before I could do that they sent my citation to a collection agency and they added another 60 bucks on it plus reported it to the credit bureaus, I didn't see it on my delinquent accts, until today, that will continue to hurt my score wouldn't it.
Cindy

Hi cindy!

If the collection agency had reported it to the credit bureaus, then it should have reflected in your credit score. You can pay off the fine to the collection agency and ask them to update the report at the credit bureau. Or you can directly speak to the credit bureau about this.

Thanks,

Jerry

Thank you!!!

I had over 13 credit cards, some I had closed cause I read it can bring down my score if I leave them open, 1 of them Is $44k limit, in which I left open cause it's with a very reputable bank, 2 others are $10k each I also left them open for the same reason, I left 2 others open that have a $5k limit, and I closed the rest.
One of the $5k limit has a $4600 balance, yet My score hasn't been affected, I closed 6 card accts 3wks ago, how does it take to get results?
Ann