What is a good credit score?

Your credit score is an enormously important part of the credit approval process. Most likely it is the first thing that a lender looks at when judging whether or not to approve you for a loan, and it might be the last thing they look at. In fact, often times your application for a loan or credit card will not get as far as reaching a human being before being denied. Just by doing a quick background check with your Social Security number, and automated system will filter out applications to deny borrowers with a credit score that does not meet their minimum requirements.

So what are the minimum requirements? That depends. A perfect credit score is an 850 by the Fair Isaac Corp. – the leading credit score model. It is nearly impossible to have an 850 score, and you don’t really need to bother on trying to get your score that high. Generally speaking, anything above a 770 will get you approved for the very best loan rates. And since you are approved for the best rates with a 770, chances are a higher credit score will not help you out any further.

While even a 730 is still deemed “excellent credit,” according to E-Loan, the he median credit score in the United States is around 720. If you have a 720 or above you will still be able to receive favorable loan rates and should not have any trouble being approved for a loan.

Back to the original question, what is a good credit score . . . if you fall below a 620 credit score, you should be concerned. This tells creditors you are a risky borrower and there is a greater than average chance that you will not repay your debts in a timely matter.

In that case, a borrower with a 620 credit score will have harder time getting a loan for a car, mortgage or even a credit card In addition, rates will be higher in order to offset the risk to the lender.

Your credit report is used by lenders to determine whether you are a fit candidate for a loan. If you want to buy a house or car in the future, now is the time to start working on cleaning up your credit report. Obtain a free copy of your credit report and look it over to see what the creditors use to determine your eligibility for loans.

There are probably both positive and negative items on your credit report. The positive items, such as staying current on your accounts, being employed, and having checking and saving accounts, will stay on your credit report indefinitely. You want these items on your credit report because they help to counteract whatever negative items you have. There is no need to act to have them removed. However, if you see that you are missing accounts that you have good history with, even if it is simply a small store card, you should contact the creditor to get them added to your report.

If you have made any financial mistakes in the past, they are probably present on your credit report. Negative items such as credit card defaults, repossessions, foreclosures, and chapter 13 bankruptcies will remain on your credit report for seven years. Chapter 7 bankruptcies will stay on your report for ten years, while any unpaid tax liens will stay on your credit report for fifteen years. These items remain because creditors want to see what risks they may take on when lending money to you.

If negative items have remained on your credit report beyond the limits specified above or if they are inaccurate, it is time to dispute them with the credit bureau. You will need to do so with each of the credit bureaus individually if the item existed on all three credit reports. Disputing items has been made simple and can be done easily when pulling your free credit report. You should expect to hear back from the credit bureau in about a month. When you receive the documentation on what corrections were made, check to make sure that the problem has been completely taken care of. If the report is still not quite accurate, you can do a second dispute by personal letter. Explain the problem fully, providing documentation to back up your case. Make sure to keep copies of all correspondence with the credit bureaus.

If you have defaulted on a credit card or other loan, you may want to talk to the creditor to negotiate a deal to get your account up to current. However, if you do not plan on paying the debt, do not contact the creditor because it may restart the clock for having the item dropped from your credit report.

There are several other steps you can take to build your credit. Open a checking or savings account with a bank or credit union. If you have enough self-discipline not to rack up debt, get a credit card and use it sparingly, always paying off your balance in full each month. Using credit responsibly can go a long way to proving that you are capable of handling larger purchases.

It is a good idea to check your credit report on a yearly basis to make sure that everything is doing well. Take advantage of the free yearly credit reports from each of the three major credit reporting bureaus. If you have further questions on how to build or clean up credit, talk to a credit counselor.

The credit score shows someone how desirable they are to a lender. When a lender sizes you up to determine how much credit, if any to grant you, it usually looking at your credit report and measures your past credit history performance based on your credit score. Generally, a lender usually looks at these 3 keys areas: character, capacity and capital (sometime known as 3Cs) to project how responsibly you handle your credit obligations. Hence, to qualify for and establish good credit, you need to get good score in these 3 areas. Let discuss it one by one.

Character

When you promptly pay principal and interest on your mortgage, student loans, credit card and other loans, you established a good character. By demonstrating a strong sense of character, you persuade the lender to trust that you will make a good-faith effort to pay your bills even if you run into financial difficulties.

Capacity

Capacity measures your financial ability to assume a certain amount of debt. Whenever you apply for a loan, the lender will ask for your annual income statement and your investment portfolio and he/she also want to get to know your other income sources. Many banks set minimum income requirements that your must meet to qualify for certain dollars of credit. The higher your total earning, the larger your credit capacity will be. Besides considering your sources of income, lender also takes into consideration of your existing debts. They prefer it if no more than a maximum of 36 percent of your income pays your total fixed expenses, and if no more that 28 percent of your income pays for housing, either mortgage or rent. The more debt you incur, the less credit lenders extend.

Capital

Lenders consider stocks, bonds, mutual funds, real estate, collectibles, cars and other asset as your capital that they can disposal to retire your debts if your character and capacity do not prove sufficient. Sometimes, lender may need you to pledge your capital/asset for your loan if your character and capacity are not sufficient to persuade lender to approve your application.

The Benefit of Having Good Credit

Lenders love people with good credit record to borrow money from them. That’s why people with good credit get a better offer in applying for credit. Among the benefits of being a good credit are: the lower interest rate, faster application approval, more attractive packages with more choices. It’s mean “Save More Money If You Have Good Credit”. If you have good credit, you even can negotiate with the lender to lower down the interest else you will turn your head to other lender.

In Summary

Having a good credit score means you have more options available to you. You can get loans with better terms and rates and you have more available to you when it comes to types of loans. Good credit record build over time, hence it’s never too early to start to establish good credit record for yourself and qualify for better options at the time your need it

With the deluge of information available and extraordinary offers from companies to fix or repair your bad credit, it is difficult to believe that 80% of cases can be resolved in short-order by only focusing on a few areas of a credit report. Based on my experience as a mortgage professional and credit analyst, I can usually pinpoint the cause of a low credit score with a few simple steps and increase the credit score within 30 days.

Here are the 3 most common credit issues I uncover and the fastest way to resolve them.

Credit card balances exceed 30% of the credit limit:

1. Pay down the credit cards to less than 30 percent of the credit limit
2. Ask the credit card company to increase the limit. This can sometimes be done on your online banking system. If not, here are the questions to ask over the phone:
- Can you increase my credit limit without pulling my credit score?
- Can I request a specific limit or will you deny me all together? Will you make a counter offer?
3. If you have some credit cards with low balances, transfer funds from one card to another so that each has less than a 30% balance
4. If you are 4 months from needing a mortgage, obtain a new credit card and transfer balances so each is less than 30% of the credit limit

Remove all errors from your credit report:

Concentrate only on high priority errors that happened within the last 2 years. High priorities are:
1. Information that is listed more than once, verify there are no duplicate collections
2. Negative payment history
3. Bankruptcy items that are still showing as past due accounts
4. Accounts that are not yours
5. Collection notices that are not yours
6. Social Security Numbers and names that are not yours
7. Accuracy of credit limits; no reporting or low limits can hurt

Do NOT focus on date of birth, address, wrong employer, delinquencies older than 2 years or wrong account numbers.

Collections or Charge Offs showing on the credit report:

1. Never pay a collection unless the creditor or collection agency has not agreed to delete the collection in writing. Paying a collection is like admitting guilt and this will lower your credit score.
2. Collections 2 years or older will only hurt your credit minimally and they are not worth pursuing.
3. Try to get the collection deleted from your credit report by receiving a letter of deletion from the creditor or collection agency.
4. Always negotiate charge-offs before settling a payment. Most creditors will accept less than 50% of the remaining balance.

By focusing on just these 3 areas of your credit report, you can dramatically increase your credit score within 60 days.