credit takes less than 7 years to clean up, that only applies to bankruptcy. and even in a year or less you can get your credit going. bankruptcy is a cheap way out for some. but some ppl really have to(divorces for example). i had a 450 beacon 3 yrs ago. by reducing my debt to income ratio and making all payments early and more than minimum on cc's i now can buy whatever i want. my score was close to 700 a little over a year ago. the low score was due to an ex-wife of mine. thats why i used the example. i was cosigned on her car and a loan which was late 60% of the time and i mean 4-5 months late. so you really can clean up your credit quit easily. it just take patience. and as stated earlier renting does not boost your score. lenders giving home loans look at rental history as well. sometimes morer than you think.Originally Posted by sk8er602