In the United States, credit is one of the most important factors when it comes to your personal finances. Did you know that your credit score can even impact your ability to rent a home or condo? Credit scores can range from a low of 350 all the way to a high of 850. In this article we are going to discuss some changes you can make to help improve your credit score fast and efficiently.
Know Your Credit Score
The first step in improving your credit score is to know what your current score is. There are many Americans that are unaware of their current credit score rating. Many people don’t even know where to search for their credit score. In the United States, many banks offer free credit reports to their clients and a few reputable online websites do allow free credit reports. It is important to do your research when deciding on where to view your credit score report. Some unreputable websites may be trying to get your personal information and social security number. Once you have discovered your current credit score rating, then it’s time to find out the different ways to help improve it.
Mistakes On Credit Report
Look at your credit report carefully and see if anything looks out of the ordinary. Was there a ding on your report that didn’t actually happen? For example, a late payment that wasn’t late or a loan that didn’t actually take place. Make sure to look over your credit report thoroughly to see if there are any substantial mistakes.
If there are any mistakes, you can dispute the claim by writing a letter to the appropriate credit reporting agency. One of the most common mistakes that can happen are closed credit card accounts that are still showing up as open on your credit report.
Understanding Revolving Utilization
Once you have finished checking to make sure there are no mistakes on your credit report, we move over to the more sophisticated revolving utilization ratio. This ratio is a percentage determined by the amount of credit given to you and the amount of credit you are currently using. For example, if you have a credit card with a $1,000 credit limit and currently spend $100, your credit utilization ratio will be 10%. Many experts say that it’s best to have a credit utilization rate of between 10% to 30%. When you start getting into the higher percentages, creditors will see this behavior as being higher risk, and this could end up hurting your credit score. Check and see what your current revolving utilization rates are on your credit cards. Is your current credit revolving utilization percentage high or low? Do what you can to try and get your credit utilization rates to a more desirable percentage range.
Avoid Late Payments
When it comes to improving your credit score, you must pay your bills on time. Don’t make it a habit to pay your credit card bills late. Over time a consistent history of paying your credit card bills on time will show that you can be trusted to pay back your debts. If you pay your bills late every month, this will let creditors know to be careful with giving you too much credit. Many people struggle with remembering to pay their bills on time. Some things that can help with avoiding late payments are setting up your accounts for automatic payments. With consistent on time credit card bill payments, your credit should improve going in the future.
Keep Your Old Credit Card
Do you still have your first credit card from college? If yes, it may be a good idea not to get rid of it. An important factor that comes into play with determining your credit score is your length of credit history. The longer your credit history is, the better. Creditors look favorably over accounts that have a long history of credit. It is a lot easier to predict your repayment patterns if you have a credit history of 20 years compared to just 2 years. When you have a long credit history, this may help a creditor feel more comfortable with issuing you a new loan. This is good news if you still have a 10 year old credit card account from back in your college days.
Avoid Applying For Many Accounts Quickly
When you apply for a new credit card or loan, an event called a “hard inquiry” could happen. This is when a creditor will pull your credit to see your history. Each time you have a hard inquiry, your credit could go down a little bit. If you do too many inquiries in a short amount of time, then this could hurt your credit especially in the short term. Avoid applying for many credit cards or loans in a short amount of time to try and avoid the negative impact of hard inquiries to your credit score.
Rent Reporting Services
This is an unconventional way that may help improve your credit but may still be worth looking into. There are services available that will report your on time rental payments to credit bureaus for a monthly fee. These companies may be a good option for you, especially if you are someone who pays their rent on time religiously each month.
Hiring Credit Repair Agency
One of the fastest ways to help with improving your credit score is hiring a credit repair agency. This is one of the quickest and easiest ways to improve your credit score. Let the experts take care of all the heavy lifting and this leaves you not having to worry about handling everything by yourself. We at Weller Legal Group can help with improving your credit score. At Weller Legal Group we have over 20 years of experience in helping our clients with debt relief and improving their credit scores.
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