Come To Find Out

Personalized Credit Strategies That Make a Difference in Homebuying

• Sarah Thress • Season 2 • Episode 27

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Ready to unlock the secrets to a better mortgage rate? This week on "Come to Find Out," we're joined by the incredible Ruoff team, Lisa and Jodi, who reveal their proven strategies for credit repair tailored for homebuyers. Learn how their non-judgmental and systematic approach can help you elevate your credit score. With precise simulations and step-by-step plans, they provide actionable insights that ensure predictable improvements. You'll discover the common pitfalls to avoid, such as opening new credit cards or accruing new collections, and how to maintain progress throughout the repair process.

But that's not all—Lisa and Jodi address frequent misconceptions and share creative strategies that can make a significant difference. From the importance of keeping balances below 30% to automating payments to avoid late fees, they offer practical advice you can implement right away. Explore how refinancing car loans can improve your debt-to-income ratio and learn from inspiring examples, like aiding clients with no credit scores at all. Tune in to understand how their personalized service and quick rescores set them apart, providing you with the tailored advice you need to succeed in your homebuying journey.

To contact Jodi Vermillion:
jodi@ruoff.com
vlt@ruoff.com
614-206-1687
https://www.instagram.com/vermillionlendingteam/
https://www.facebook.com/jodivermillion

Lisa Ferguson
lisa@ruoff.com
vlt@ruoff.com
614-633-6099
https://www.instagram.com/lfergie1964/
https://www.facebook.com/lisa.ferguson.718

Sarah Thress
614-893-5885

First Time Home Buyer course: https://sarahthress.graphy.com/
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/sarah_thress_realtor/
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/SarahThressRealtor/
https://www.youtube.com/@LIFEINCOLUMBUS

Sarah:

Hi and welcome to this week's episode of Come to Find Out. This week we have the amazing Roo-Off team, so we've got Lisa and we've got Jodi and they are gonna talk to us about credit repair. So a lot of times I have clients that will come to me and they will be like, oh my gosh, my credit is horrible. There's no way I can ever purchase a house. And I'm like, well, you know, like I don't need to know what your credit score is, but I'm going to connect you with some lenders that can help you.

Sarah:

And what I love about what you guys do is you then, you know, with no judgment, help them to figure out like, yeah, you know what your credit score isn't exactly where we'd want it. So here are some things that you can do. So I love that you guys do that blueprint, but I also know that you all have like kind of like a secret weapon that not everybody uses, and so that's what I really wanted you guys to you know to talk about is you know, how do you figure out what to tell people to do with their credit?

Sarah:

So, instead of just throwing stuff up against the wall and hoping that it, you know, makes a difference in your credit score. Instead, you guys are like Nope, if you do X, y, z, your credit score is going to be where we need it by this date, and you know. And obviously, if they don't follow it, it doesn't work out, but if they do follow it it does. So we'd love for you to just kind of walk us through, like you know, whenever you're talking to somebody that has not an awesome credit score um, how do you kind of handle that? And then, how does that simulation work?

Lisa:

Sure, I'd say the first way to start the process is to do it with kid gloves and be nice about it and let them understand that we're here to help them. Yeah, we see all kinds of scores. Whatever your score is doesn't impact how we treat you. We're going to help you get to where you need to be to buy a house. So the simulations that we can run always work. Always work Every time.

Lisa:

Someone does the simulations and they complete the actions that we require them to do in order for their scores to raise. It works every time, as long as they follow the instructions. Yeah, and there are certain instructions during the process that we give them as well. It's like don't do certain things, don't open new credit cards, don't go over your limit, multiple things, no new collections, no new collections, all those items. So it's very specific for those people.

Lisa:

When we pull their credit, we have the ability to go into the back end of their credit report and run simulations. If we pay this card down to this, pay this card down to this, request a deletion of a credit collection from a credit reporting agency, and it works, then this will be your score for each one. Once those actions are completed, then we submit that to our credit rescore hub through RUOF, the lender that does that for no cost to the buyer as well, so they're not paying for it. We just want to get them to where they can either afford more house, get a better program, get a better rate, all those things. So we're looking for the best case scenario for them at the end.

Sarah:

Yeah, so I love that, I love that. Can you give kind of an example of someone that maybe, like, came to you?

Sarah:

Obviously, we're not using any names, because we do not want to call out anyone or embarrass anyone, but could you walk us through maybe, like you know, I had you know Joe Smith that you know had this credit score and we were able to, you know, have him do this and this and then within you know two weeks, you know whatever it is like. Could you just kind of walk us through what that looks like, just so that people understand? You know a little bit better.

Lisa:

A lot of it is also personal meaning, like do we want to get them to at least do FHA? Do we want them to do conventional loans based on credit score? Depending on where they start, that may take us a little longer if they have a lower score to get to a conventional level, but we can get them to an FHA level as far as credit scores. Jodi just did one recently that had no score at all, which she can talk about that, so we can help people like that as well, wow, jodi, how did you do that?

Jodi:

Oh my gosh, I can't wait to tell you about this so well. One thing I want to back up for one second before I touch on that is that I've been in the business a long time. Lisa's been in the business a long time 24 years for me. So the old school method was you know, pay down all your collections, pay off all your medical bills, pay everything off, pay that down. You know, and, and you know, clients would jump in and assume they knew what to do, or they would hire a credit repair company that basically wants to dispute everything first and then pay down all these things first and then it. It's not necessary to pay someone to do that because with our expertise and having our experience of doing it for so many years, I mean I can look at a credit report in a second and tell you exactly what to do, and then I just go in and simulate the action. It tells me how many points I'm going to get, and then those are the instructions we feed back to the client. So and they're specific, they're instructions Do this to this amount. Do this to this amount. Get this for me. Sign this borrower's authorization. Do not touch your credit, only use debit. Let me know when it's all completed and get me this letter that says X, y and Z. Once they do all those things, then we complete a rapid rescore. That takes really three to five business days. So when some folks think, oh my gosh, I'm not going to be able to buy for a year, it's not necessarily true, and a lot of people get resistant where they they think they know what they should do and and I I beg them not to do that, because sometimes if you pay off a collection that's old, it can bring a current and drop your scores. So there's tricks to it. It's called playing the credit game is what I call it for people. We're going to play the credit game. So don't assume you know what to do. Let me tell you what to do and let me prove it to you and show you why you want to do what I'm telling you to do. So we put together a master plan and then, so long as they follow it, it's good.

Jodi:

Talking about no credit, a lot of folks think, oh, I have no credit, I can't buy a home. So you have folks that are young, folks that are elderly, folks that are new in the country like that where they don't have credit at all. I mean, one of the easiest tricks is to have them added as an authorized user on someone's seasoned, perfect pay credit card such as a relative or something like that or open a secured credit card which we tell them to do that so there's no chance of denial. So let's say they give $500 to open up a secured card. They'll go out, charge a tank of gas, pay the card back down to $10, so the card will report. Call the credit card company, find out when it's going to report, communicate that to us, then we know when to pull that credit report through. So that gives them a score.

Jodi:

At that point, and literally I just ran a simulation and you can run a simulation with zero credit also, just to prove it, to show them how it works. And you can run a simulation with zero credit also just to prove it. To show them how it works, because I had an elderly man and a disabled sister that were going to be on a loan and the other sister was helping them with everything, and so basically the sister didn't believe that you could do that for credit. So I sat her down in my office just the other day and I said, let me show you. I said here's why you want to do this for your dad and your sister. Um, and so basically, a popular score to seven, 40 like that, wow, yeah. And so once you have that score, you can run it through automation, you know, as far as getting them qualified for conventional loan, which is what everybody wants out there in the market right now to be competitive, yeah, so you know.

Jodi:

You run it through automation, get it approved, eligible and away you go. You don't have to verify rent, you don't have to do all these hoop jumping things when you don't have any credit, you don't have to build a non-traditional credit report. And you know they're golden, they're good to go without so much hoop jumping, which is nice. But that was my point on the no credit one.

Sarah:

Yeah Well, and I love that and I know that you've helped clients of mine in the past, that they actually had decent credit. But we figured out that they could get, instead of an FHA loan, they could get a conventional loan if they just came up just a few points and it was going to give them a better interest rate, correct. And so you all ran that simulation and you said you know, if you do this and this, um, you know, let us know whenever it's done. And they did it. And then you know, they, you guys, ran that score and within three days it was like oh, yep, now you guys qualify for this.

Sarah:

And so it ended up saving them a ton of money and it wasn't like go pay off your car or go you know, like pay off this credit card or whatever, like it was literally just like pay down this to this much, you know, and it was like maybe a few hundred dollars, like it really wasn't even that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things to save them money. So I love that you guys always look at that big picture and you try and figure out different ways that you can. You know that you can help people, oh yeah.

Lisa:

We're in that system daily, yeah, especially if we've got someone on the cusp of the FHA versus conventional. I mean, we talk about this all the time. It may be five points, yeah, and it gets them a way better program. It makes them more competitive in the market. You know a seller's going to accept typically a conventional loan pre-approval over an FHA loan pre-approval. There aren't the inspections that are required in. The conventional loan is an FHA loan. So we're always looking to put them in the best light when they're out there making offers so that their offer gets accepted. That's our job.

Jodi:

It's what we do every day. Yeah, I love that. And, touching on what you said, as far as we're trying to get them, like she said, the best loan option that's available to them, so it could be. Their credit score is decent. Let's say it's a 690 credit score and we know that we could get them to a 705. And let's say the 705, we can do something creative with mortgage insurance to eliminate the monthly to a let them qualify for more home, but for B to get a better loan options and keep that payment lower for them. So it's, it's. It can be as simple as that. That only takes three to five days. Yeah, yeah.

Lisa:

I think they're amazed at the timing. Yeah, they're like, well, how long is this going to take? And it's like, well, if you do all these simulations? If you do all the actions that we ask you to do in a timely manner it takes once we submit it.

Jodi:

it's three to five days. Yeah, it could be one action.

Lisa:

Right, it could be one action. It could be secure card. I mean, it's really that easy sometimes, just and that's amazing.

Sarah:

Yeah Well, and I was going to say like, um, you know, I know that sometimes it's just that one action, and so, you know, within a week, you guys can, you know, have them do that run the rescore and it's automatically, you know, like it's automatically higher.

Sarah:

Or there are other times that you're like, ooh, okay, this is going to take a little bit of time, but if you stick with it and you do X, y, z, in six months from now you're going to be in a much better situation because you did that simulation. You're not just like, well, do these things and we're going to hope and pray and cross our fingers that this works out for you. No, we know for sure. If you do this, this and this and continue to make all of your other payments, don't, you know, open up any new credit?

Lisa:

things like that, like, if you follow everything to a T, in six months from now you're going to be able to, like, purchase a home which you think about it, six months is like nothing, you know, in the grand scheme of things, Right and it helps us guide them and for hopefully, to what they need to do to keep their scores at a certain point. I mean, those are just situations that we are constantly guiding and helping people. If you do this, this, this and this and keep this progress happening and keep this the way it is, it's going to continue to stay good. Your credit's going to be good, yeah.

Sarah:

Yeah, which will definitely help with everything down the road by having that higher credit score.

Jodi:

Yeah, and I. There's a lot of folks out there that perhaps had some bad habits perhaps, or just made some mistakes when they were younger, or life happens Right, yeah. And so let's say they think that they are never going to be able to buy a home because of their credit. And I, I always encourage people to start somewhere. Yeah, start somewhere. If you don't start somewhere, you're not going to get anywhere. So, and then it could be a stair step, like you mentioned before. It could be do X, y and Z. We rescore it once, then we simulate and see where we're at and give them the next set of instructions, but at least they're going to get on their way. So that's, I think, really important, that they don't have to feel helpless, that they can't do anything.

Sarah:

Yeah, I love that. Well, and I also will have, um, some clients that are, like, you know, my credit's not that good. So I'm going to go ahead and just like, pay off this credit card and I'm going to close it down, so that you know that, like, that helps my credit Right? No, not always, not always Like no, no, it actually doesn't, because, um, what I've learned, you know, from talking with you guys, is that, you know, by doing that, by cutting off that credit, it then eliminates that credit history that you have, which also plays into your credit score. Correct, correct, because obviously, credit history making payments on time. Are there any other tips and tricks you can think of to help people with their credit before they even come to you? And then, once they come to you, obviously you create their personalized plan.

Lisa:

Well, you hit on one of them, which is close accounts. If you've got an account in good standing, maybe you're not using it regularly, but don't close it. You want the history, especially if it's a long history of credit with the same person or the same company. You want to keep that open, not necessarily use it all the time, but don't close it. You want to be able to have that ability to use that if necessary and it gives you that length of time history which you need, also in credit. What's some of the other things? Balances, yeah, keep your balances below 30% Involving debt.

Jodi:

So, um some of the other things, balances yeah, keep your balances below uh 30% debt impacts your scores quite, quite a bit. So it's, you know, here's your limit, here's your balance. Let's keep it down here. You know, I always tell people to, a trick of of of many, I would say, is to automate your payments. Correct, you know, if you have a habit of not being able to pay your bills on time, cause in our world life gets so darn busy.

Jodi:

I mean everybody's all over the place all the time, um, and just so much going on all the time. Is that just automate the minimum payment so it's paid on time every time, no chance of being late, and then when you have a minute paid on the balance, yeah, so I mean I've I've coached so many people on that, because they just can't seem to pay their bills on time and it's like do yourself a favor.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Jodi:

Yeah, and they're like oh my gosh, I never thought about that.

Lisa:

I'm like oh, automating payments is a great idea. Everyone should do it.

Sarah:

Yeah, absolutely. And then I always try and let people know too, once they're in the process of looking for a home, and especially once they're in contract don't go out and open new credit cards, don't go buy a new car, don't go buy new furniture. Because if you go and you, you know, open up a value city credit card and get all this furniture, there is a chance that you then are going to have a whole bunch of furniture and nowhere to put it.

Lisa:

Right, so you're going to be living on your furniture.

Jodi:

Yes, yeah. Um, yeah, so or living in your car. In your car, yeah, you're a thousand dollar a month. Car.

Sarah:

Yes, yes, well, and I think that's another thing I know we've had, um, you know clients that we've worked with that have very high car payments and you know you've helped kind of simulate like hey, if you traded this car in or sold it. Or refinanced it, yeah, refinanced it At a better rate, anything?

Lisa:

Yeah.

Sarah:

To make it less. Then they qualified for more because their debt to income ratio came down. They're you know like everything came down in their credit history. Give them enough wiggle room yeah.

Jodi:

To get what they want. Yeah, yeah, totally.

Lisa:

I have to say. Everything. Everyone's unique, obviously, so in any situation, we're going to be able to help them again, as long as they do the simulations that we tell them to do, that do the the actions that we tell them to do, um complete them in a timely manner. Just keep on track with those things. It always works, yeah, it always works every time, yeah.

Sarah:

Yeah, so yeah, I love it Cause you guys I know you guys really care about customer service. You really like, or your servant leaders, you love to like help people. It comes from you know, it comes from your heart.

Sarah:

So, that's why I love like sending people your way, cause I know you guys are going to take such good care of them and you have all of this creativeness, because not every lender has that and you guys are, you know, unique because you have that service and you're not charging for it, because some lenders, you know they either don't use it very often because it does cost, or they charge the client, you know, to do that. That rescore.

Lisa:

And a lot of them aren't doing it in three to five days Right.

Jodi:

Well, and not only that. I mean I think that's what sets Roo-Off apart. I mean they actually want to support their loan officers and and their you know Desire to help people buy homes. And there's some companies that literally won't use the simulators that at all because they cost so much money. Rough, you looks at it as a cost of doing business with a supports us and helps us help more people. Yeah, so you know it does set us apart from many. Yeah, and why that people should, you know, and you got to have a lot of experience with it too. I mean, like I mentioned before, you know we've been doing this so long. I mean I can look at a credit report and tell you what to do, and there's a specific plan that we tell you to follow, and so long as you do, way.

Sarah:

Yeah, yeah, I love it, I love it. Well, thank you guys so much for taking time out of your day. I know you guys are both so, so busy, um, so I love whenever you guys uh take time out to meet with me and you know help educate people.

Sarah:

So, absolutely, thank you for highlighting us. Of course, of course, I always love it, but thank you so much for tuning in to this episode. Uh, please make sure that you are going and leaving a review. Feedback is the greatest gift that you can give. I will make sure that I have all of the information for the two of them, so in the show notes, so that you can reach out to them and connect. And if you're watching the video, you did see that you know we're using the Ruoff cups, and Jodi um highlighted the information on it. So, um, if you do a deal with them, you get one of those too.

Jodi:

So yeah, it's amazing, Like a Yeti right. Who does it? I?

Lisa:

just took mine on vacation. I love it, and I even passed out Ruoff sunglasses to all my friends and family. Oh, there you go.

Sarah:

I love it. I love it, but yes, and definitely share this episode, because that is the greatest compliment that you can give the three of us is sharing this with someone, and make sure that you're following the show so you never miss another episode. So, thanks so much and see you next time on Come to Find Out. Thanks,