A New Way to Improve Your Credit One credit bureau now factors on-time rental payments into its credit files.   When it comes to credit history and credit score, renting doesn’t get much respect. Unlike homeowners whose credit benefits from on-time mortgage payments, renters don’t see any positive effects on their credit from making rent payments [...]

Credit Repair Service: What to Expect Google the term “credit repair” and 19 million results are instantly generated. With so much information available, and so much of it conflicting, how do you know which credit repair company is legitimate and which ones are really just looking to take advantage of desperate consumers? The following are [...]

Know the Score:  Three Steps to Better Credit If you are looking to buy, invest in, or refinance real estate now or in the coming months, your credit is going to play a more significant role in today’s tight-fisted credit environment than it has in the past. It’s that simple. Would-be borrowers need to address [...]

Identity Theft: 5 Tips to Protect Your Privacy The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) estimates that as many as 9 million Americans have their identities stolen each year. This means that an identity is stolen every 3 seconds, costing the average victim nearly $4,000 and nearly 175 hours to straighten out their problems and their credit. [...]

Credit Scoring Part IV: Credit Remediation If you have clients in need of credit remediation, and especially if you live in an area where this is an overall problem within the population, you should seek to align yourself with a credible referral source for credit repair. While government web sites will suggest that self-help may [...]

Credit Scoring Part III: Dealing with Challenges Typically, a person with a low credit score is in this position because they lack structure in his or her life. There are, of course, cases where unplanned health or employment complications are to blame, but for the most part, these are individuals who lack the discipline to [...]

Credit Scoring Part II: The Five Factors of Credit Scoring There are five factors that comprise the credit score. They are listed below in order of importance, just as an underwriter would look at the score: Payment History: 35% impact. Paying debt on time and in full has a positive impact. Late payments, judgments and [...]

Credit Scoring Part I: Good Credit Translates into Lower Rates for the Consumer   In the 1960s, Fair Isaac Corporation started working on a system lenders could use to evaluate the likelihood of receiving repayment on loans. Prior to that, it was really a matter of trusting an individual to be a “man of his [...]

Your Credit Score What It Means to You as a Prospective Home Buyer Introduction The subject of credit scoring has become an increasingly hot topic, and for good reason. For many years, the general public only associated the concept of credit scoring with the need to purchase high-ticket items such as a new car or [...]