For
a lot of Americans, especially in today's economy, repairing
your credit might be very important for you at the moment. There
are various ways to do this, but they all boil down to a couple
of solid points: Pay your bills and pay your bills on time.
Let's look at these two tasks and see what else might be
involved.
To improve your credit report,
the biggest thing you can do is to make sure all of your bills
are paid off or at least current. Anything that shows as late
counts against your credit score. Also, credit agencies report
late payments according to being over 30 days late or over 60
days late or more than 90 days late. The longer the payment is
overdue, the worse it reflects on your credit score. If you have
had late payments and they are listed on your credit report,
only time will remove these marks.
The number of available
credit accounts can reflect poorly on your credit report. These
can have a negative effect even if there is no balance currently
charged to the card. The mere fact that you have access to the
credit makes other lenders less likely to make their credit
available to you. Keep your credit cards down to only a few -
perhaps only one from each major credit card supplier
(MasterCard, Visa, Discover and American Express). The same is
true for retail credit cards. If you do not use these, close the
account.
Carrying high balances on
available credit accounts reflects negatively on your credit
score. If you have a credit card with a total credit balance of
say $10,000 and you have an outstanding balance on that card of
$9,000, other lenders will question why the account balance is
so high and close to the total balance available. They will be
less likely to loan you more money if you are keeping high
balances on other cards and accounts. Pay down those outstanding
balances.
A high number of inquires
for your credit report will lower your credit score. Practically
every single time you apply for credit, the lender requests a
copy of your credit report. If a lender sees that you have had
numerous inquiries in recent months, the lender may think that
you have been shopping around for credit but other lenders have
turned you down already for whatever reason. Some situations are
different. Shopping around for mortgages within any thirty day
period counts as one inquiry in most situations and will not
reflect poorly on your credit report. Applying for ten credit
cards before applying for a mortgage will signal reasons for
concern to the lender.
The above mentioned items
might help you improve your credit score from the three major
credit reporting agencies. There are other things that you could
do as well, and we will add those to this web page as time
permits; but the items list above should get you well on your
way to improving your credit score. Comments and suggestions are
always welcome. You can email them below. Thank you.
Other credit management pages:
•
Credit Management Home
•
I need to start a credit
history.
•
I need to
dispute incorrect credit data.
•
What other
resources are out there for managing credit reports?
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