As real estate agents (in California), we are working with more and more potential short sale situations.

A common concern to the owners, is what affect will a short sale have on their credit when they want to buy a home in the future. Will it be judged as harshly as a foreclosure? Will it be judged as harshly as a bankruptcy?

And the real tough question, are there any reputable credit repair services out there? Not the fly-by-night charge-you-money and leave you as wounded as before firms, but a real slow and steady work hard to help folks fix what ever can be fixed. And someone who can give them solid advice.

Any thoughts out there?

Well me working as a loan officer put people on the credit comeback plan which is basically to cash out pay off debts keep payments on time and in about 6-8 months refinance again and get your credit score higher usually around 40-80 points. We also could put them with this other credit firm. That was an extra charge though of i believe 5k. But I have seem them time and time again fixing many of our clients credit dramatically. That's why anyone i do a loan for i automatically suggest that program for them unless they have a credit score higher then 750.

Kevin,

Two companies that I can recommend, both located right here in California.

1) Credit Resources Corp.
866-541-2500 Contact: Linda Ferrari
www.thecrcgroup.com

2) HTDI Financial
877-877-4834 Contact: Dominic Campasano
www.htdifinancial.com

These companies are both very legitimate, as you are aware there are many that are not. Contact me if you have any other questions about credit repair.

The brokers/loan officers that do business with us can track their clients through our HTDI Mortgage system and receive automatic email notifications as well

As far as short sale versus foreclosure, it makes a big difference on credit. A short sale will show up as an account closed not paid in full much like a charge off. A foreclosure is disastrous from a credit stand point. A homeowner can initiate a short sale at any time, they dont have to wait until they've made late payments or anything. The lender will do extensive research on the borrower's assets and find a way to 'split the difference' on the short sale.

As far as credit repair, there is nothing special that a credit repair company does that you can't do yourself. I do alot of credit repair jobs and dont charge anything extra for it. The clients are usually so thrilled, they ALWAYS come back and bring their friends.

Where that is technically true, it is not logistically true. Yes, a client can send in a dispute letter on their own, however getting very good results is a different story. To say that a consumer can get the same results as a credit repair company, that is not entirely true.

For example, a consumer reads that they can repair their own credit themselves, so they do some research over the internet and read some books about doing it themselves. Do you think that they will be able to achieve the same results as say, HTDI Financial, which averages a 40% fix/deletion rate in the first 45 days (highest in the industry) and has worked on thousands of credit files?

Where there are a few handful of consumers that are educated enough to do things on their own, consumers as a generalized whole cannot achieve the desired results a professional company can, which is why so many companies, where the consumer can technically do on their own, are in business. I.E. Real Estate Agent, Lawn Care, Auto Mechanic, Legal Representation, Pool maintenance, and of course, dining at a restaurant. People have been preparing their own meals for ages, so why PAY a restaurant plus tips to prepare a meal for you.

Welcome to the board, Dominic! Your insights on credit repair should be a good contribution to our discussions. Good to see you over here

Regards,

Dominic, I can also boast a 40% fix/deletion rate in the first 45 day. Its really not difficult at all. I'm sure you do a great job, I just do the same thing for free as a service to my clients and get the same results.

A few things i am noticing lately.On a repossesion pay special attention to whether it states the car repo was voluntary or involuntary.

Example you call and voluntarily give up the vehicle but after repo the company says they had to come and take it from you this will be a ding to your score.Getting it changed to where you gave up your car on your own will be better for your score.

Also if you have a collection on there,it's true that it will come off after 7 years but what happens it usually they resell it off right before the 7 years and start the process over.So even though it may not be correct an active collection really hurts your score as compared to a clsoed collection that was paid off or satisifed a few years ago.

Also sometimes the credit report won't show a discharged bankruptcy or will show accounts as active collections that were included in the bankruptcy and shouldn't be showing active.

Generally a short sale won't count off as much as a bankruptcy or a foreclosure will.If they have assetts the bank might pursue a defeciency against them if it is allowed in that state.

Email notifications seem to be lacking here, so I apologize for just getting back, I didn't know there was responses.

Promise Land - Thanks for the reply. I'll do my best to help out. Found you guys through Broker Outpost where we are a large supporter.

Aaron - Thanks for your reply. Though I think you're not telling the truth about a 40% fix deletion rate, I'm sure you do a good job; however I would put everything I own that you do not get the same results as us. I hear alot of smack from alot of individuals and other credit repair companies on what they can do. I bite, and after further research they pale in comparison. Hopefully you're different. If so, I thank you for being another individual that provides decent service to their clients, for free or for a fee, doesn't matter.

But 40% in the first 45 days, I highly doubt it.

Actually it hurts your score the same. It's still a repo. Just like an unpaid collection and paid collection hurts the same. It's all about date of last activity, not the subdetails of the status. I.E. Repo and Volutary Repo. The "Voluntary" is the subdetail of the status of "Repo"


I've not seen it sell right before 7 years, I have seen it after they give up on collecting and that's how you can end up with 5 collection tradelines for the same collection. The statute of limitations is based on the original creditor, not when it gets sold to another collector.


Hope that helps.

Doubt all you want my friend, 40% in the first 45 days is not a problem.

and I'm not talking about a client that you happened to get halfway clean. Out of thousands of reports that is our average.

That is untouchable by the credit repair industry. We know this because we work with hundreds of companies through programs like resellcreditrepair.com and creditrepairtracking.com

Domininc have you ever heard of Good Life Credit? Same type of company. Just curious. They call and bug me sometimes.

I would use HTDI. But, I can usually handle it myself.

No, not off hand, do you have a website link for them?