Your credit score accounts for the amount of interest you have to pay for a loan or a credit card. Increasing your score by just a few points will make a big difference in the interest rate you will pay for a purchase. If your credit score is high enough, youíll have no problem qualifying for a lender’s best rates and terms on auto financing, home loans and small business loans. The following are a few tips about how you can protect and improve your credit rating.
Your credit score is based on your credit report, so you should begin by ordering your reports and reviewing each one for accuracy. You can get your reports from a service such as Identity IQ, or order from Equifax, Experian and TransUnion separately online or by phone.
2 – Check Your Credit Report Information for Inaccuracies
Check the identifying information for name, social security number, birth date and current address. Check open accounts for inaccuracies, unverifiable and incorrect information. Check for accounts and delinquencies that are not yours to include but not limited to; late payments, charge offs, lawsuits, judgments or paid tax liens older than seven years old. Also, duplicate collections, bankruptcies that are older than ten years and any negative information that is not yours.
3 – Always Pay Your Bills on Time
Payment history makes up more than a third of the typical credit score. In the past If you paid bills, you can improve your credit score by starting to pay your bills on time. Lenders are looking for any sign that you might default, and a late payment is a good indicator that you are in financial difficulty.
4 – Keep Credit Cards Balances Low.
Carrying smaller balances is the best way to increase your credit score. The score measures how much of your limit you use on each credit card or other line of credit, and how much of your combined credit limits you are using on all your cards. Within 60 days, paying down credit card balances can increase your credit score by as much as 40 points.
5 – Try Not to Open In-Store Credit Cards.
Although your first credit accounts can serve to build and improve your credit history, there comes a point when each subsequent credit application can reduce your score. New credit cards reduce the age of your credit history, and a department store credit card isn’t good evidence of credit worthiness.
6 – Be Conservative When Applying For Credit.
Having at least one credit card that’s more than 2 years old can help your score by 15 percent. Make sure that your credit report is checked only when necessary. Or, if you are shopping for a home, try to apply for loans within a 30 – 45 day period. By keeping the loan process within a 30 – 45 day period, all of the credit report lookups are seen as one single request.
7 – Don’t Close Credit Cards or Other Revolving Accounts.
Closing unused accounts that have outstanding balances without paying off the debt changes your utilization ratio, which is the amount of your total debt divided by your total available credit. It will reduce the gap between the credit you are using and the total credit available to you, and that can hurt your credit score.
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Welcome to MARSSS Credit Restorators!
Our mission is to help our customers resolve and take back control of their financial lives. We help individuals restore their credit scores to secure the financing they need, want and deserve.
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In this free telephone consultation, we will discuss what’s going on with your credit, your credit goals and your expectations. Furthermore, we will go over our program, how it works and determine if you are a candidate for our professional services.