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Answers (10)
Best Answer

- JoAnna Jensen, "realestateadvocate"
- Contributions:78
Hi,
How old are the medical bills?
what you can do is dispute them.
medical debt has a very specific statute of limitations.
If it has already went to a collector you should send them a dispute and validation demand.
Within 30 days they are required to validate the debt FCRA, FDCPA.
Sometimes what debt collectors will try to do is chage the date the debt was last paid. check out all of the informaiton on your report.
if anything is incorrect you can dispute it for that reason.
Additionally you can look to see if anyone has pulled your credit report without your authoriztion you may be able to get those inquiries off as well.
Your score is not that bad actually. I believe anything about 640 and your ok you may pay slighly higher but if it is your principal residence the rates are very low anyway....
Best of luck.
Oh, make sure when you get your quotes that you ask the loan officer to put inwriting that they will give you the lowest rate you qualiify for and ask about yield spread premiums. YSP so loan officers will get paid a rebate. so for example lets say you truly qualfy for 4.125% but the lender is paying the loan officer a rebate and now your getting charged 4.5%instead.
Typically this type of deal is done when you dont want to pay points or fees but watch out, some will do what is called charging you on the front end and back end. they like you a lot then!! So they may get 1.5% on the front end of the loan and 1% on the back end of the loan or what ever.
There are a ton of differnet ways they get paid but make sure you understand what your being charged.
Additioanlly the yield, again I belive is another thing that can be a big difference between not haveing the lowest payments.
So you really need to work with a mortgage broker who discloses their fees. Bankers do not have to disclose.
Dont ever believe a loan officer when they say you are not paying points or fees no loan is done for free.
If you go to a mortgage banker they do not have to disclose a ysp but a broker is required to disclose that.
You deserve to be able to truly compare apples to apples, understand what your paying, and what you truly qualiify for .
How old are the medical bills?
what you can do is dispute them.
medical debt has a very specific statute of limitations.
If it has already went to a collector you should send them a dispute and validation demand.
Within 30 days they are required to validate the debt FCRA, FDCPA.
Sometimes what debt collectors will try to do is chage the date the debt was last paid. check out all of the informaiton on your report.
if anything is incorrect you can dispute it for that reason.
Additionally you can look to see if anyone has pulled your credit report without your authoriztion you may be able to get those inquiries off as well.
Your score is not that bad actually. I believe anything about 640 and your ok you may pay slighly higher but if it is your principal residence the rates are very low anyway....
Best of luck.
Oh, make sure when you get your quotes that you ask the loan officer to put inwriting that they will give you the lowest rate you qualiify for and ask about yield spread premiums. YSP so loan officers will get paid a rebate. so for example lets say you truly qualfy for 4.125% but the lender is paying the loan officer a rebate and now your getting charged 4.5%instead.
Typically this type of deal is done when you dont want to pay points or fees but watch out, some will do what is called charging you on the front end and back end. they like you a lot then!! So they may get 1.5% on the front end of the loan and 1% on the back end of the loan or what ever.
There are a ton of differnet ways they get paid but make sure you understand what your being charged.
Additioanlly the yield, again I belive is another thing that can be a big difference between not haveing the lowest payments.
So you really need to work with a mortgage broker who discloses their fees. Bankers do not have to disclose.
Dont ever believe a loan officer when they say you are not paying points or fees no loan is done for free.
If you go to a mortgage banker they do not have to disclose a ysp but a broker is required to disclose that.
You deserve to be able to truly compare apples to apples, understand what your paying, and what you truly qualiify for .

- Russell Smith, "RussellMortgage"
- Contributions:109
Be careful about paying off collections in that age range as when they update on credit it can actually lower your scores in the short term. This doesn't make sense and most don't know this is how it works for credit scoring. So please make sure you talk to an experienced mortgage professional that also knows the ins and outs of credit scoring. Based on your scores you mentioned, you may not have much of a difference at all in rate if you use a government loan such as VA, FHA, or USDA which all require zero or low down payments and don't require medical collections to be paid off unless a certain lender has their own requirement on top of the regular guidelines. A conventional loan would have an increase in rate of a decent amount based on your scores.
"The advice Agents gave could cause further damage to your credit scores. "
I'll go one step more and suggest you ignore them entirely. Depending on how much medical debt you have, it is still possible for you to purchase without paying it off.
I'll go one step more and suggest you ignore them entirely. Depending on how much medical debt you have, it is still possible for you to purchase without paying it off.
Simple answer-if you don't take action to resolve the issue as shown above in previous replies you can expect to pay a higher price for your loan.

- wayne lancaster, "funds2"
- Contributions:1175
The advice Agents gave could cause further damage to your credit scores. You should go to Professionals tab above and contact one or more loan officers in your area/state. Pick one to go forward with based on your comfort level that they have the expertise to assist you in the Pre Approval process. There are several approaches to dealing with collection accts. including doing nothing. One approach that could be very harmful would be to dispute the accounts at this time.
There are many complicated details to the mortgage loan process, and should always be left to experienced and competent loan officers. Sort of like the home buying process............
There are many complicated details to the mortgage loan process, and should always be left to experienced and competent loan officers. Sort of like the home buying process............

- Margaret Seme, "bikeragent"
- Contributions:23
You can question them on the credit reporting sites and they will have to verify. If veified you then can try to settle with them.I would never accept their 1st offer to settle--I've had clients that have offered as low as 20-30% of the debt and negotiated it with them--the thing is if you are settling for that low of an amount you will have to have the funds available immediately.
I would check with my lender 1st--he/she may want you do handle it differently

- aprlluvs
- Contributions:2
Thank you for all the information. The medical bills are not that old. They are in collections and mostly ambulance. Question for you-Should I try to settle some of them prior to looking into getting pre-qualified? T hey are 12 to 18 months old. I appreciate your response.

- Margaret Seme, "bikeragent"
- Contributions:23
Ask your lender from what I was recently told is that ALL collections and/or judgements have to be paid in order to get a mortgage. You maybe able to negotiate with the collection agencies for a lower than balance or a payment schedule that you can afford. Those mthly payments will affect the amount you can afford to borrow and any settled for less than may get you a 1099c for the difference, which you my have to pay taxes on, this your CPA can advise you on.

- Sharon Lewis, "Sharon Lewis"
- Contributions:3916
Thats correct, you will pay higher interest over the long term,so sit down and do that math and consider paying the medical bills off so you can purchase. Perhaps you can reach an agreement with the medical company? (Hopefully, you are feeling better?)

- Maria Morton, "MariaMorton"
- Contributions:716
The lower your scores, the higher the interest rate you pay.




Fico is 651 to 680 & the only negative items on the report are medical collections I won't pay
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