Goodwill Provides Hope

I am a 46 year old man who for many years in my life lived beyond my means and as a result ended up with several negative accounts on my credit report. This included some student loans as well as credit card and other debts.  I got married  about a year ago and my wife and I are currently planning to start building  our “dream home” (on a lot which we already own) within the next few months.  The problem is of course that my credit report and scores may not be favorable in being approved for a construction loan.  My wife’s scores, incidently, are in a more acceptable range.

About six months ago, we set out to try and improve my scores by paying off all of the delinquent accounts on my report.  At first, my score increased (from 475 to 526 – equifax), but after a couple of months some of the accounts were still showing information which had not changed or that still had incomplete or erroneous information.  To correct this problem I filed dispute claims with equifax and transunion.  My thought was that the claims would be investigated, and that they would find my claims to be valid, change my reports to reflect the corrected information and my score would go up.  HOW VERY NAIVE OF ME!  I still don’t understand it all but somehow in all this my score over the next month or so dropped from 526 to 495. 

My score has since gone back up to 508 after one of the accounts did get reported as paid which had not been reported earlier.  I have inquired at a couple of places including equifax about explanations fro what I have experienced, and nothing that I have been told nor read has been as helpful as what I have learned from reading the blogs here at brokencredit.com.  I’m only sorry that I didn’t find your site before I started this mission. 

At this point all of the accounts in question are reporting $0 balances, however, some are still being reported as open accounts; some as collection accounts but no notations of being paid; some as paid collections; some as skip; and the student loan accounts are showing an opened date of 01/2001 which is now more than 7 years; etc. 

Am I doomed?  Have I made a total mess of trying to clean-up my report?  Is there any hope of being able to make my report and scores look more favorable? 

What are the chances of us getting approved for a construction loan with my middle score being in the mid 500′s and her’s being in the upper 600′s?

Gary 

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Hello Gary,

You may want to attempt goodwill letters with all of the paid accounts.  That seems to be the best course of action given your set of circumstances. 

There is an exception for student loans in the FCRA that can extend the credit reporting. 

You absolutley need to add at least three positive tradelines to your report.  I would recommed three secured credit cards.  If you do that now, you may have a decent shot at obtaining an FHA construction loan to finance your dream home in six months. 

Thanks for the questions and hope this helps.

Paul