All Forum Posts by: Anthony S

If your primary intention at the present time is to improve you score, I would not suggest you pay off any debts that have gone to collection, unless they agree to also delete it from your file. A paid collection is no better than an unpaid collection in score modeling, and paying it without a promise for deletion from the creditor can actually hurt your score, as it will make the debt more 'current' regardless of when it was last delinquent. Also, negotiate directly with the original credit issuer. They are the only ones who can actually delete something from the report.

Now, I'm not suggesting you should skirt your responsibilities if you do in-fact have debts that have gone to collection, but am telling you the reality of the non-sensical fico model. J Scott had some very good other suggestions that will help improve your score. A huge factor is utilization, so the more credit you have available but aren't actively using, will help your score tremendously. That and time and no lates.

With that said, some(most?) lenders will require you to pay off those debts before issuing you a mortgage, but in the meantime I would concentrate on getting my score higher, and attaining higher limit cards.