how long will it take for my husbands credit score to improve?
his score is 547 he has one credit card and he has had it for 7 months, he's missed a couple of payments and went over the limit once but for the past few months we've been paying it on time and paying well over the minimum payment. he owed money to a collection agency but just paid it off today. we want to buy a house and are wondering what we need to do and how long it will take to improve our credit. thanks
Public Comments
- Improving credit score takes years. Getting rid of negatives on your credit report will take about 7 years. But, you are off to a good start. Continue to pay your bills on time. Talk to your creditors and ask them to voluntarily take the negatives off your report. If you have been a good customer since the late/missed payments, they may do that. Best of luck, and keep it up.
- You will need to give it sometime, probably a year. You are off to a good start, but now...this is what you should do. 1. Invest in a credit monitoring and score watch (this is crucial to see where you are, whats keeping you back, and and things on what can be done to increase your score.) With credit monitoring, you can keep track of your progress 24-4. 2. Continue to pay the bills on time 3. No huge debts and NO high utilization on the credit card Follow these steps, and in 6 months..your score will jump aprox. 40 pts, then another 6pts, gain another 40pts or so. It will take time. Good luck and best wishes.
- This is my brother's situation as well. His score is around 565, and they were told to wait about 2 years to get to 620, so they can buy a house. They still owe money on debts, like you do, maybe around $8,000. EDIT: They spoke to a financial adviser, that's where they got the info.
- You should also get a copy of your credit report from the 3 bureaus (Equifax, Experian, & Transunion). It's free to get your report from them once a year, and you can get them online from a service like annualcreditreport.com. You should get a copy so you can check if there are any errors or items that should be taken off because they've been there past the statute of limitations (which can be anywhere from 3-10 years depending on the state).
