Bad credit choices in past.?

I was very stupid with credit while i was younger. I never paid on five different credit cards. There is now five years since the last activity is being reported. I want to purchase a house within the next year and cant wait the seven years that it takes. They all say paid collection or charge-off. Any ideas on how to approach the compainies so they get some money back and upgrade my account? What percentage should I offer them as a settlement. I keep hearing they sell the accounts for pennies on the dollar. Any idea how much they really get?

One of the accounts is an open collection account that is reported every month. Should I leave it alone also?

Bad credit choices in past.?consolidation loans

Credit is nothing more than an agreement, a promise. If you failed to pay in the past, and you want to get someone to loan to you again, you have to repay what you borrowed. If you are going to instead see how little you can pay to eliminate your past debt, your new lender has got to think that you will treat him the same way.

Pay your debt...or suffer the consequences. As you said, you made some bad previous choices. Either own up to them (and pay) or work through the various options of being a renter until your bankruptcy is discharged, etc.

It%26#039;s hard to get a new lender to believe you are credit-worthy (aka, %26quot;trustworthy%26quot;) if your primary goal is to *NOT* pay your debt in full.

Bad credit choices in past.?

loan

You can conctact each of the companies and they will more than likely offer you a settlement amount. Once that is paid they will consider your account paid in full. Your credit report will still reflect the late payments but will show that it is paid (even if you paid the amount in full your credit report will still show your late payments). I think that trying to pay some is better then none at all. If you start now making arrangements and stay in good standing with all your current creditors for the next year then when you go to buy a house it should be o.k. You may be faced with a higher rate but you can eventually refinance once you have built your FICO score up.|||If you do try to pay any of the credit companies, your credit report will show the most recent date of activity on those accounts, which means suddenly you have taken bad credit from 5 years ago and made it today%26#039;s bad credit. You%26#039;re in a really bad situation either way. Probably you need to try and give yourself good credit by getting a secured credit card - the easiest way is through your bank. Even though the card is secured, your use of that card is reported to the credit agencies and will show up on your credit report. Definitely pay off the collection agency since it shows current...but think twice about the previous accounts - you are guaranting that you will have more bad credit for seven years from the date you finally pay all those accounts - and btw, most will not show paid in full. You do not have a good chance of buying a house right now or in a year - your only chance is if you have a really sizeable down payment (30-50% or more) and are willing to pay very high rates. A co-signer with great credit will help, but is no guarantee. A quick way to help pop your FICO is to get a person with a really great credit score to add you to their credit card accounts - their credit history gets added to yours.