Cleaning Collections

You should check out the SOL for such debts in your state. If the SOL period is not over, then you should negotiate for a settlement or consolidation with the collections agencies in order to pay off the dues. You can do this yourself or you may even take the help of local debt relief companies in this regard.

You can contact with the CA???s and negotiate with them. If they agree to negotiate with you, then you can make a written request to them for a pay for delete agreement via certified mail with a return receipt request. If they accept your proposal, then they may remove the negative listings from your credit report after repaying the debt and updating your account status as ???Paid-in-full??? or ???Paid-as-settled???.

Paying off old debt impacts more than just credit score.
If the debt is still within SOL, payment would eliminate the chance of legal action. Unpaid debt can escalate.
PFD offers while still within SOL run the risk of alerting them to the debt, and possible initiation of legal action. PFDs are without much peril if SOL has expired, but run some risk if the debt is still within SOL.

No, payment itself wont improve your FICO score, as FICO scores the derogs that occured along the way, and not payment of the debt. Update of status to paid will improve your CR upon a manual review by a prospective creditor.

If you apply for a mortgage loan and the collections still show as unpaid on your CR, most mortgage lendors will condition any loan approval upon your payment of that debt.