por Stacy Francis, CFP®, CDFA
An old friend – a real estate agent in the Midwest sent me an email this morning with a topic she suggested I post in my blog. With real estate prices at record lows, many aspiring homeowners are looking her up. Many fulfill both the down payment and income requirements for a mortgage. Unfortunately, they tend to underestimate the extent to which the credit markets have changed over the past couple of years. These days, there’s no way around it: your credit score must be sky high. Wanting nothing more than for her clients to have their dream homes, she has put together a list of quick lifts for that FICO score.
1. Pay down balances. A main ingredient in the credit score formula, the size of your balances really does matter. Pay them down – or even better, off.
2. Protest unfair information. If you have an entry on your credit report that shouldn’t be there (honestly, now), know that you can dispute it. If you submit complaints to the company that posted it as well as the credit-reporting agency, they will investigate and take it off, leaving your record a whole lot cleaner.
3. Ask for help. If you’ve been a loyal customer for years and normally make your payments on time, chances are, if you talk to customer service, they will disregard that one time you forgot to pay your bill because you were on your honeymoon. Ask politely – and thou shall receive.
4. Don’t neglect the oldies. Another important factor in the credit score formula is how long your accounts have been open. So even if the Victoria’s Secret card you applied for when you were in college doesn’t have the most useful perks, use it once in a while for a credit score boost.
5. Make your payments on time. It seems simple, yet so many people fail on this count. If you have a hard time remembering your payments, set up a reminder.
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