I want to buy a house next year and my credit is all messed

Hello and welcome to the site,
Since you have registered with the site a credit counselor will be contacting you to discuss your situation.

Check out this link, it talks about the benefits of debt consolidation...which sounds like something you would be interested in.
http://www.debtconsolidationcare.com/benefits.html

jvogel - do you know how bad your credit is at this point? It would be a good idea to obtain copies of your credit report from all three reporting agencies, and check out what your credit situation truly is, before you consider purchasing a house. It's always best to go into a large purchase like that armed with your credit score and knowing what your score will affect in terms of interest rates, etc.

If you see that you have many small bills listed on your credit report that could be paid off quickly, start on those and work your way up. That will start improving your credit. Also, dispute any inaccurate items on your credit report, such as creditors showing balances due that you have already paid. Request paid in full letters from those creditors so you have something to back yourself up when disputing those items.

Hope that helps - let us know if you have any questions! :D

3 months before we closed on our first house with 80/20 loans, we both had credit ratings in the low-mid 500's. 1 weeks worth of madly writing letters to dispute EVERY negative mark on EVERY credit report resulted in a climb of around 100 points each in removals of items the creditors just never dealt with (2 months later- 2 months thats all it took!). Even if the reports are right, its worth writing a lot of letters even if just for a small improvement!