Thanks for all the input thus far, everyone! I took sort of a cursory look at some of the Cleveland and Akron forums and there appears to be a LOT of good information specific to these markets in there. I can definitely see why analysis paralysis can freeze a lot of people from breaking into the real estate game at all.
A couple of you have made comments regarding credit, and I actually have some questions about that... I began taking steps to improve my credit about 8 months back (I was interested in getting my personal finances in order before I considered doing anything related to real estate). My credit is jacked because of some mistakes I made some years back, and one of the mistakes I made was closing out all my old credit cards, thus resetting the clock on my history when I opened the only credit card I currently have. When I log into creditkarma, though, it shows two open accounts on record--the other one is one of the afforementioned closed credit cards. I called Huntington Bank to ask about it and the representative told me that they can show up on credit reports for up to 10 years after they're closed. The funny/lucky thing about it happens to be the one credit card that I was never delinquent on, so I think it's actually helping me because it's nearly 6 years old and therefore brings my average account age up to ~3 years. So that brings me to my questions...
- Am I correct in assuming that this is helping my credit rating?
- Is there any way to know exactly when that old credit card account is going to fall off my reports?
- When it does fall off, will it affect my credit score enough that I should currently be in a hurry to secure a loan?
- How long should I expect it to take to reach 620 (currently 587/599), assuming I continue to do everything right?
