Quote:
Originally Posted by mbmouse
It all depends on your situation after the BK. If you have still left some good standing credit accounts open and continue to pay on them and have saved some money (at least 10% and closing cost) and can show good income, yes you can get a mortgage soon( a few months even) after BK. BUT the rates are not good. The biggest question will be why the BK in the first place. If you had a BK because you were unable to afford the debt in the first place it might be a good idea to rent a while and practice budgeting and such first.
Just my opinion, I don't mean to offend.  |
I am glad you posted this. Despite what our lawmakers (who drafted a horrible revised bankruptcy bill recently) want the public to believe, most bankrupties are caused by unexpected life events--sudden medical issues, unemployment (not uncommon, esp. since outsourcing to foreign countries seems to be the norm now), and encouragement by the credit card industry to charge, charge, charge (just watch their commercials). People in need turn to charging the basics of life but that will only delay the inevitable...
Here's something important to know: you can re-affirm some debts in a bankruptcy (I believe this is what you meant). The positive effect of this may vary according to lender, but it's worth a try and worth asking the lender about. We had a HORRIBLE bankruptcy lawyer who told us we couldn't continue paying anyone listed in our BK and also told us to stop paying them for 3 months (we weren't even late when we filed BK), and this tanked our scores so badly it took at least 1 1/2 years to get them up to what would be considered minimally normal. Creating the late payments per his instructions proved a scoring death knell.
I can suggest some good sources to learn about what to do and what not to do before, during and after a BK. Also I recommend an excellent forum that helped us tremendously:
www.creditboards.com in rebuilding credit, mortgage questions etc. You can read the posts without joining and you may find answers to your questions that way, or can join and post your concerns. It is helpful if you know your 3 FICO scores ahead of time (and real FICO scores, not FAKO scores) so that anyone who answers will have an idea of what your current credit status looks like.
After finding that site and realizing all we were doing wrong to try and recover from the BK our scores were in the 700s from lows in the 500s just by following the sage advice on that board. Hope this helps. That website is to credit and improving your scores as city-forum is to finding out the real story on places to live, both pros and cons.
Good luck in any case.
P.S. According to Stephen Snyder, a man who found out the hard way how to recover from a BK, try to avoid renting if at all possible. Even if you have to take a higher interest rate on a mortgage, it is still better as you start to build equity and re-finance or sell at a profit down the line after you have worked to get your scores back up. I'm talking just a basic, no-frills starter home here, of course. There are a lot of benefits to being a homeowner and tax advantages as well. I did not find his advice in time and now we are stuck in a rental for over 3 years and desperately trying to get a home ASAP.
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I would love to have that info tx
