Archive for the ‘Free Credit Score’ Category

Stop Deteriorating Credit Score



With the change in economy, towards recession, thousands of people are faced with a diminishing credit score rating.  Companies, in order to survive the depressed economy, have resorted to layoffs, decreased work hours, and elimination of part time workers.  Many are facing the problem of how to maintain their credit position or how to improve credit score ratings.

 

Losing employment creates a real challenge for you in dealing with your bills.  Of course, if you have savings then this will carry you into the future and delay your credit problems.  But, this is the best time to attack your credit issue to improve credit score.  The following is a few tips to get you started to protect your credit score rating.

 

Make a list of all of your creditors.  Separate out the credit cards, so you can work on these first.  Arrange them in highest to lowest interest rate.  Before your credit starts to change, you want to see if you can qualify for a new credit card that has a low interest rate.  Usually you will get a lower interest rate if you transfer a balance from a high interest rate card to the new card.  Getting your interest rate reduced can help to improve credit score by preventing you from defaulting on the loan.

 

It is always best to apply for new credit cards, if you are still employed or if you just recently lost your job.  Having too many credit cards can be detrimental to your credit, if they have a high balance.  Use the new credit cards with a lower interest rate only to move balances from the old credit cards with a high interest rate to them.  You will be able to pay these new credit cards off much quicker and improve credit score.

 

If you have old credit cards that have high interest, call these companies and negotiate a lower interest rate.  If you lost your income, inform them that you will now have a difficult time making payments on time.  Remind them that you want to maintain a good credit score rating and improve credit score.  Tell them you don’t want to default on your loan and need their help.

 

Not all credit cards companies are friendly.  Some of them will not make concession until you stop making your payments.  This is unfortunate since you may need help now when you ask for it not 6 months later during default.  When you find a company that is hard to work with just keep calling them to discuss your issues, since you need to maintain your credit score rating.

 

Despite all of your efforts to stop degradation of your credit score, you may not be able to improve credit score.  If you cannot keep up with your payments, you will not only lower your credit score but you will be charged with late payment fee, which will increase your debt. After six months of none payment, you loan balance is normally sold to a collection agency.

 

Once a collection agency has your account, the will hound you, lie to you, threaten you, and call you many times at home and work.  They will remind you that you want to improve credit score not break it down.  Despite that a credit collection agency has purchased your account balance from a credit card company, they have no legal right to collect your balance. 

 

A collection company will not send you a letter and even if they do, they cannot sue you in court to get you to pay, since your original payment contract was with the credit card company and not them.  So they have no documents saying you legally promised to pay them for the credit card loan.  Your credit score rating and efforts to improve credit score now have to wait for another time, while you work through the credit collector’s efforts to collect money from you.

 

Losing your job or having reduced income changes your entire prospective on life.  Now you have to work to improve credit score or credit score rating, since these credit scores will determine what you will be able do financial in the future.  If you are unable to pay one credit card, then don’t let the collection agency intimidate you into thinking you need to pay this.  The damage has already been done to your credit and it’s time to try and prevent default on your other credit card accounts.

Fha Loans Below 580 Credit Score

If you have a credit score below a 580 it might be extremely hard to get a FHA loan in this current lending market. But there are other options when it comes to getting government loan. Even though FHA will insure loans below a 580 credit score the secondary market that buys and sells mortgage paper has set the stage as to what will be bought and sold in this market.

When loans are bought and sold in the secondary market, investors watch a particular borrower’s performance. If they notice a particular borrower is not performing well on the secondary market they pull the plug on financing that type of risky borrower. So it’s essentially like watching your own stock portfolios performance. If that particular portfolio of yours is not dong well you stop investing your money in that stock. Mortgage loans work the same way.

Over the last 6 to 7 years FHA loans were being written for all types of borrowers including borrowers below a 580 credit score. Until now there was never a credit score requirement for FHA loans. Most banks are requiring a middle credit score of 580. There are exceptions to this rule. Some banks will allow a FHA loan to go through with a credit score below a 580 if the bank or mortgage company gets an automated approval. An automated approval is a piece of software that banks use that either says “yes” or “no”. Let’s assume you have a credit score of 578 and your loan file is ran through this software and it says ‘yes”, as long as that particular lender will allow a credit score below a 578 with a automated approval you are good to go.

Some banks have internal rules for loans they will approve as well. So just because you have a credit score below a 580 does not mean all hope is lost for an approval.

If you have a credit score below a 580 here are some factors that could possibly help to get an automated approval.

- Savings in the bank

- 401k, usually $25,000 or more really helps

- Money for down payment

- Low income to debt ratios

These are some key factors that could possibly get you an automated approval with low credit scores.

If you have recently been denied for a mortgage loan, get a recent copy of your free credit report and start working on your credit. The higher your credit scores the better terms you will get anyways. Bad credit does not go away; it just lingers over your head like a dark cloud. What ever your situation is there is always a solution.

Boost your Credit Score Drastically! Fast and Easy.



We all know in the adult world, your credit is everything. Someone once said, “You’re only as good as your fico score.” It’s sad but it’s true. Home, auto and other lenders swear by it so if you plan to purchase anything on credit then you’d better have your credit in check.



If you’re like me and the average American, you’ve had your fair share of late pays, collections, charge offs, etc. All these things negatively affect your credit and drastically reduces your score. My credit demise started in my younger years as a college student, like so many others. I was a broke and struggling college student who fell prey to the “Just send in a copy of your student i.d. and we’ll give you a credit card” line. That was the beginning of what I call “the set up”. This pretty much set me up for future credit ruin. I started receiving all these cards, was charging them up to the maximum and had no money to pay for them. Over the years I also made other financial decisions that impacted my credit negatively. It was just a matter of time before I looked up and realized I had bad credit!

In my quest to repair the damage I had done, I found out that you can dispute accounts on your credit with a letter and get them deleted. This is especially true for items that have run their seven year course and have not been removed yet. But it can also be done for any of your accounts. Instead of using the online dispute form at the credit bureaus websites, I devised my own quick and easy dispute letter. The results were tremendous!

After sending out my first round of letters to the three major bureaus, accounts started falling off like magic. After a few months of using the letter there was a drastic increase in my fico score. I was able to increase my score by almost 100 points in only three months. I also used the letter and did the same for my husband. This is amazing since the average time for you to see these type of results is usually anywhere from 8-24 months.



Increasing your credit score will put you in a better position credit wise and make you a more attractive borrower to lenders. You’ll have lower interest rates as well as lower payments which equates to thousands of dollars in savings. You don’t have to pay those so called credit repair experts hundreds or even thousands of dollars. A good simple dispute letter will do the trick. I found out that these credit repair companies do the same exact thing. Why not be your own expert and get your credit back fast and free! Do what I did and use a credit dispute letter to get the job done.