We've been declined.

We have recently checked with the credit agencies, and know basically what is causing the bad score. We have recently paid off one of our hugest and oldest debts. We don't have any current loans, we've been buying things outright mostly, like our cars and such. Perhaps having no lines of good credit is what's hurting us. Rent to owns from what I've seen are a bit more expensive. Also the current situation we're in was SUPPOSED to be a rent to own, and after we moved in those plans changed. One down side to renting from family, ugh! I was hoping that with the market as bad as it is, there would be some help to get us into our own home. Perhaps a miracle will happen and we will get a loan, or perhaps we have to wait a bit longer. We'll see. Thanks for responding.

Here in the states your credit clears after 7 years. I'm sure that's rather universal. When I was younger I had a hard time getting a line of credit due to having none! It's hard to get credit established. Sometimes they prefer a bit of bad credit over no credit. My bad credit is due to just being foolish and not paying bills, not even credit cards or loans, a lot of it is medical. Then they went to a creditor and are now on my report.

Hey, thanks for the info on the credit. I had forgotten that it clears after seven years in the states. When I was a bit younger, I had many credit cards and some went into default. I could not afford to pay for them and then moved and now I'm sure they are on my credit report as deliquency. If I had it to do all over again, I wouldn't have had any credit cards. I have always worried that the debt would stay with me till the end of time. So I suppose there might be some hope that my credit will get better one of these days. I'm sorry to hear that the mortgage did not go through. Something will open up, I'm sure. These things have a way of working out. My best to you and your family. Be well.

That must be why I was OK, mine has cleared. I was the same foolish with my money, easy done when young, wish I knew then what i know now though.

I do not want to rent to own. Those are bad ideas for many reasons, one of which being if the home had been a rental property, then it hadn't been being taken care of and would cost us too much more in the long run. Not to mention that rent to owns are usually more expensive than an actual mortgage. We were looking for a mortgage that was no more expensive than our current rent.

Honestly, I haven't done it yet. I forgot to mention that you have to put down $300 in the first place. Haven't had it to spare, but if you can it would probably help you. Just remember to stick to the plan.

Is that working for you?

One of our biggest issues was my husband needed surgery when we had no insurance. That is over $10,000 of our debt. He applied for some help at the time, but was declined because he made too much money, or his job offered insurance, or some stupid reason. Some of our medical is just stupid things the insurance didn't pay for. I've racked up over $300 with my kid's doc because the insurance only pays a certain percentage, that's even after my co-pays. Plus there is the deductible, so I owe $500 from having my last baby, and about $4,000 from the baby before that. And yes, that was with insurance. Nuts, isn't it? The oldest of our debt at the moment is nearly 5 years ago. Hubby's surgery was 5 years ago, and our 2 car repo's were about 3 or 4 years ago. So I guess we don't have too long to wait before those are dropped. After those things are dropped, the credit isn't too bad or unmanagable. It's just really hard to tell myself to wait 2-4 years because of the situation we're in. We want out NOW. Unfortunatly affording it is not easy at the moment, plus there is so much stuff we need that we may not afford if we end up paying more in rent. Mortgages aren't too bad, if we get a cheap place the mortgage could be as low as $200 a month. However renting a place, the cheapest I've seen is about $700, that's more than we're currently paying. Plus there's a matter of our pets, that we WILL NOT get rid of. They are part of our family as well, and many renters are not allowed pets.

We were already looking at very small loans, as we know we can't afford to pay a mortgage that's any higher than our current rent. Also, we only have 1 credit card, but the account is closed and we're trying to pay it off. We don't like credit cards because they've only ever gotten us in trouble, so we stay away from them.

Sounds like you are doing everything right. With all the foreclosures right now banks are being very picky about lending money so the problem may be more the timing than anything else. I wish you luck.