However, it is possible to remove a short sale or foreclosure from a credit report. According to the Federal Fair Credit Reporting Act, everything reported on a customer's credit report must be 100 percent accurate and verifiable. Write a letter to the credit bureau at the address on the credit report. Please indicate that the short sale in your report does not belong to you (the information is inaccurate) or is out of date and should be removed.
Or, file a dispute online (see Resources). Expect a response in about 30 days. A short sale can stay on your credit report for up to 7 years, as can most negative brands, such as foreclosures, garnishments, cancellations, and bankruptcies (although sometimes they can stay for 10 years). With a short sale, your lender agrees to lift your lien so that you can sell the house yourself and repay part of the loan.
A short sale can occur when the bank agrees to remove the lien on your property, allowing you to sell it even if you are no longer paying the mortgage. To qualify for good interest rates and loan programs, you may want to work to fix your credit before applying for another mortgage. For example, you may have more trouble getting approved for a major loan to buy an expensive item, such as a car, than for a new credit card. If you sold your home through a short sale, you were probably facing foreclosure and convinced your bank or mortgage company to allow you to sell the house for less than what you owed on the mortgage.
In this free training, you'll learn how to make customers willing to pay you, even if you're just starting out, how to get easy results of repairing your credit without being an expert, and how to get all the customers you'll need without paying for advertising. You may be entitled to receive additional free credit reports under certain circumstances, such as after you post a fraud alert, become unemployed or receive public assistance, or have been denied credit or insurance in the past 60 days. As long as your other accounts are healthy, you could return to normal within two years, as credit rating providers tend to give more importance to events that occurred in the past 24 months. Now, this really sucks for a homeowner, because according to Quicken Loans, a short sale on your credit report can lower your score by 160 points and stay on the report for years.
Sometimes it's possible to offer to pay that balance in exchange for your lender to eliminate short selling from your credit report. Therefore, you may not be able to qualify for a loan to buy a home again for seven years, the time the foreclosure will remain on your credit reports.
