To buy or to wait, that is the question.

[Bradley Gaulden]

Good Afternoon y'all! 

I recently moved to Dallas after graduating from Texas A&M University with my masters in Real Estate. I am currently working for a real estate lending company in Las Colinas. Working in the industry I see on a daily basis how awful rent is, and how badly I want to buy something to build equity. I decided to live at home after graduating this past December to pay off all "frivolous" debt, Ie credit cards and such from college. I should be done with that around December of this year. 

My main question I pose is this: I will have roughly 15k to put down on a property by next March or April. I was thinking of trying to buy a condo under 75k. I was looking into FHA financing the property, living in it for a year or so to build equity and fix it up and either rent it out or sell it. As it stands now my biggest hurtle would be my 540 credit score, that no doubt will go out after paying off all credit card debt and such. If i had that 15k to invest, but it would completely break my bank, should I wait and rent for a year or so to build up a cash reserve? or bit the bullet, buy and then fix as I can using the funds from my paycheck and the savings I would have due to a lower mortgage payment then rental costs.

Ultimately I would love to find an investor mentor in the Dallas/Fort Worth area who would be willing to help me navigate my first purchase, or give me some sort of guidance in what direction I should take.

Thanks everyone!

[Jacob Pereira]

I have to disagree with @Josh Caldwell and @Daniel Hernandez on hiring a credit repair company. I actually hired one to try and get a mysterious charge-off removed at a price of $99 a month and after 6 months, nothing had happened except that my bank account was $600 lower. What I've learned is that credit repair companies are for people too lazy or unknowledgable to use Google. Your score is really low, but I'm not sure which scoring model you're using. Ideally you'll get your FICO, since that's what most banks use, but some of the "Fako" scores out there, such as those from Credit Karma and Quizzle aren't terrible. Here's my advice, but take it with the caveat that I'm not a credit professional:

Sign up for all the major free Fako providers, and also check to see if your bank gives FICO scores. Most of the majors are doing it now. Use these to help keep track of progress.

Credit card utilization will kill you, but luckily it's something you can change quickly. If it's a large amount, take out a lower interest loan so your fees aren't killing you. This should also have a pretty immediate effect on improving your score. If it's a smaller amount, you can try to just pay them off, but definitely do that before trying to save a nest egg. If you run into trouble, you can always use your card again. Check all three of your credit bureau reports and dispute anything you don't recognize. 

It sounds like your parents are pretty supportive, so you might want to consider asking them if they'd be willing to add you to one of their credit card accounts (assuming they have one that has been open for a while and isn't holding large balances). This will give you the benefit of vastly increasing the average age of your credit accounts.

After that, your score should increase relatively rapidly. After that, talk to your bank and see if they'll consider increasing your credit limits. This will put an inquiry on your credit, but that has minimal effect, drops off relatively quickly, and the increased limit will improve your utilization rate.

As far as condos go, I know a lot of people on BP don't like them because they don't afford you the amount of control that an SFR would, and I somewhat agree. If you're in a hurry to move out of your parents house, in most situations you'd be better off buying a condo than renting (provided you stay there for a few years), but why not just stay there for a bit longer and save up enough to buy a house? This would also give you more time to get your credit into that desirable 740 zone.