How long will we have a bad credit score?

We tried to buy a house about a year ago, but couldn't because of our bad credit. We followed instructions given to us through a credit counselor, but haven't seen any change in our score. In fact, it's now worse now than it was when we started looking, (they said the inquiries by lenders did that). Over the past year, we have paid off a couple debts, put a truck loan in my husbands name and been paying on time, and everything else we pay is on time. We were hoping to be able to buy our home this October, but it's still bad. I mean, we're starting to think we should just quit trying for a house. Any experience with this? How long will we have to wait? We were told we could probably get into a house with a downpayment, but we don't have very much.How long will we have a bad credit score?
I agree, sounds like your credit counselor isn't helping much. Are you in a repayment plan with them? Those actually hurt your credit sometimes, since they often only partially pay certain debts for a while. Inquiries shouldn't have that much impact, 5-20 points?



Do a search for housing finance agency in your state. They can help you to some degree, at least with finding good lenders who work with their grants and subsidies. Talk to one of their sponsoring banks and ask about FHA financing. It only takes a 3% downpayment, which the housing agency might grant you the money for. Good rates, easy credit qualifying. If your credit isn't good enough today, they should be able to tell you how to get it better that actually will work.



With FHA, there's no minimum credit score. In most cases, 12 months of clean credit history is good enough to get a great fixed-rate loan.How long will we have a bad credit score?
Credit counslers are bad , do it your self pull your credit and dispute alot of the items even if their yours , say they are inaccurate you can remove alot of them by doing this . transfer all your credit cards to one , then leave the other cards open with low balances
Negative items stay on your report for Seven years from the date they are added.

I know that sounds like forever, but in the mean time, keep paying on any cards you have, pay off that truck and eventually you will be in good shape. Also get that free credit report each year and see where you are. It doesn't give you a score, but will show where you are as far as paying off your cards.

I went through this 16 years ago and now am a happy home owner myself.

Good luck.
Don't use a credit counselor. They just make things worse. If you have any bad marks on your credit report they will stay there for 7 years. The more time that passes the less it will count towards your credit score. You need to limit the number a queries on your credit report. If you have more than 2 credit cards, get rid of them. Make sure you are using less than half of your credit lines. Dispute all negative information on your credit report. If the company that put it there doesn't respond or show reason for it being there within 30 days it must be removed. Do this several times and there could be a good chance of getting something removed. Then just make sure you're paying at least twice the minimum payment and your score should begin to go up.
7 years