You may be at the point in your life where you are ready to take that leap and buy a new house. However, the pressure when it comes to researching a lending service for a mortgage loan can be very overbearing, especially if you happen to have less than perfect credit. Before you actually decide to apply to places to get a home loan, it might be wise to work on raising the credit first to increase your chances of acceptance. Here are some of the things you can do to help raise a less than ideal credit score prior to buying a home.
1. The first and most obvious way to improve your credit score is to pay down the debts that are currently on your credit cards. Financial experts on the matter claim that keeping your debt between 10% and 30% of your available credit limit is a good way to boost your credit score. Most loan companies frown more upon credit card debt than any other kind of long term debt like a car payment or a student loan, so it is important to get those cards paid off.
2. If you have a current credit card, paying your monthly dues each month is highly weighted on your credit score. This is basically the proof when it comes to your financial reliability. Even if you had made some mistakes in the past, it is important to not allow those errors to happen again. No matter what happens, take every step possible in order to avoid getting into a similar situation. For each time you make an on time payment you will see that reflected in your score. At the end of the day, if you had to only focus on one thing to make your credit better before buying a house it should be proving that you are capable of paying for it.
3. If you have older credit accounts it has been said that leaving them open instead of closing them is beneficial to your overall goal of getting better credit. If you happen to have unused credit cards that still maintain an open status with the account, do not close them. This is because the length of your credit history counts for about 15% of your credit score, and closing those accounts means you are shortening your length. At the end of the day this could mean closing one of your older accounts could potentially damage your score quite a bit.
4. A study done by the Federal Trade Commission has found that out of all their customers at least one in five had some kind of error on their credit report. Therefore, it might be highly favorable to look over your own reports and see if you spot any errors that could be bringing down your credit score. Keep in mind that any time you request an error or something to be removed off your report, it will have to be investigated by the credit bureaus. The way you can start this cross-reference check is to get your free copy of your report from Equifax, Experian and TransUnion, which are available to you once a year. Once you are able to obtain them and print them out, look through every single detail with a very fine lens. Once you find the errors, inform the bureaus and they should investigate and correct them within 30 days. This could increase your chances of getting a better home loan rate before you get to the application process.
Written by Reza Abadi of USA Mortgage. USA Mortgage is the best company for home loans Columbia MO has to offer!