Low Interest Rates May Not be for Everyone: How To Get Your Credit House in Order Before You Buy

The only thing hotter than the temperature in North Texas is our real estate market. 

Houses are being snatched on the day they’re listed, and prices are on a steady upward climb. Everyone is raving about the low interest rates that can get you into those houses… hurry before they go up! In fact, experts say if it were not for the banks requiring bigger down payments, we’d almost be back in 2005 real estate land.

But here is a dirty little secret: those low rates are only for the people with a large stash of cash or the credit score of a model borrower. The Wall Street Journal reports that, according to an analysis at Goldman Sachs, more than half of all homes sold last year and so far in 2013 have been financed without a mortgage. For everyone else,  those lowest-in-your-lifetime interest rates are notsomuch. That’s why, now more than ever, you need to take a CREDIT CHECK UP before you even consider buying a home. You’ve heard of people preparing for a pregnancy? Well, in this economic climate, heated home sales and all, if you are looking for a mortgage, you’d better do some pre-mortgage planning to keep your consumer credit score crystal clear.

But the problem is, how do you find a legitimate credit repair company? 

“I can look like a G-man, but I’m really just a man of the people.”  That’s what local consumer credit expert Doc Compton jokingly says about his passion for helping those people who can’t quite meet today’s minimum mortgage requirements.  His company, Omega Credit Repair & Counseling Services has been a fixture in the credit repair industry for the last nine years, and is widely recognized as a leader in the industry.

“Every company says they’re different, but Omega really is different.  Aside from the fact that we don’t have commissioned salespeople, we also don’t charge the illegal up-front fees that a lot of companies do.”  What’s more, for the first 9 years they were in business, Omega did absolutely ZERO paid advertising.  None, that is, besides a presence here on CandysDirt.com where we call on Doc for all our credit questions. This past June, when Omega partnered with Dallas’ own HotOn! Homes’ as their exclusive credit repair partner, they came out of the credit closet, so to speak.

“With so many bad-guys in our industry, we felt like we were almost doing consumers a disservice by not spreading the message about what credit repair should be,” says Doc, “and we felt like this was the right time, and the right partner with which to do so.”

There are a lot of misconceptions out there about what credit repair can and can’t accomplish.  First and foremost, if you don’t pay your bills, don’t expect miracles. Doc warns that any credit repair company that promises to remove timely, accurate, complete information is breaking the law, and should be avoided.  What’s more, he says that not everybody is a candidate for credit repair, that Omega turns people away almost every day.

“Credit repair is not a magic bullet, ” he says. “If someone is currently late on their credit cards, car loans and mortgages, for example, their problem is budgetary, and not credit-related.  We tell them to get their finances in order, and then come back to us. ”

Sometimes Compton even gives them homework.

Compton takes satisfaction in knowing that credit repair is a critical component of the overall economic recovery, too.

“We all know what happens to the economy when people can’t buy houses,” he says. “We’ve been there. If we can help make the dream of home ownership a reality for people, by eliminating the errors and omissions that are keeping their credit scores low, what’s not to feel good about?”

Known for his creativity and inventiveness in an industry that’s otherwise pretty cookie-cutter, Doc is currently developing a membership-based website that he believes will be a true game-changer.

“I’m basically going to make my nearly two decades of consumer credit knowledge and experience available to anybody that needs it, on an on-call basis,” he says. “It’s gonna be huge.”

Although he’s pretty secretive about the details right now, he promised that CandysDirt readers would be among the first to preview it when it debuts later this year. And yes, he will still have that G-Man look going in full force.