I receive questions all the time regarding the credit scoring system, the FICO score, and how to improve those scores.
Not only can improving your FICO credit score improve your chances of obtaining a mortgage, but it could improve your auto insurance premiums and, possibly, make you a more attractive employment candidate.
FICO scores range from 300 to 850 – and mortgage applicants get the best mortgage rates and terms when their FICO scores are 720 or higher.
For borrowers of all FICO scores, the best way to improve your credit rating is to understand the factors that make up your FICO score, and to take the right actions that can make a positive impact on your score.
Find out more here from The Mortgage Reports and Britt Scearce
What’s Included In Your FICO Score
The FICO credit score takes into account a combination of all of the information found in your credit report.
Your FICO score is made up of the following:
- Payment History: 35% of your overall FICO
- Total Amounts Owed: 30% of your overall FICO
- Length of Credit History: 15% of your overall FICO
- New Credit: 10% of your overall FICO
- Type of Credit in Use: 10% of your overall FICO
To find out what is impacting your FICO score you will want to review your credit reports. You can obtain a free copy of your credit report from each of the three main credit reporting agencies — Equifax, TransUnion, and Experian — at www.annualcreditreport.com.
Your scores are generated based on a snapshot of the information on your credit report as of the particular moment that the report is pulled. Correcting errors is crucial, therefore, to ensure the highest possible FICO score.
Here are things you can do in the short term to improve your score:
1. Verify your accounts are current
“Payment History” makes the largest impact on your FICO score at 35% of your overall score. It is vital, therefore, that you keep current on all of the accounts reporting to your credit report.
When reviewing your credit report, should you find any accounts that are past due, catch them up as soon as possible and pay at least the minimum payment required by the due date.
2. Dispute your inaccuracies
Should you detect any errors on your credit report, you will want to request a correction as quickly as possible. In order to make a correction, use the information on your report to contact the credit bureaus, and also the creditors which provided the erroneous data to the bureaus. Getting even one late payment removed from your credit report can improve your FICO score dramatically.
3. Ask for a little grace
Sometimes, a creditor may be willing to “help you out”. In cases where you make a relatively small slip-up, with a creditor you’ve never been late with, you can sometimes get a late-payment waived. It’s always a good idea to make a phone call and to ask for a little grace. This works best if you catch the delinquency early and bring the account current right away.
There are many examples of creditors removing a late payment from your credit report if there’s a legitimate story behind what happened, and if you can explain what steps you’ve taken to avoid a repeat occurrence.
4. Settle up collections, charge-offs, judgments and liens
Old collection items, credit card charge-offs, and judgments and liens can hurt your FICO score, too. If you’ve got any of these on your credit report, it’s time to contact your creditors and collection agencies and to settle up one-at-a-time.
In many cases, you can negotiate with your creditors to remove a trade line completely in exchange for settling an account for its full balance. You need to call your credits first, however, to find out.
5. Improve your debt utilization ratio
Another way to improve your FICO is to improve your “amounts owed”, or debt utilization ratio. Debt utilization makes up 30% of your FICO credit score. This is a measure of how much you money you owe to creditors as compared to how much credit is available to you. The FICO scoring model takes into account the utilization of each individual credit account; and the utilization of all of your credit accounts combined.
For example, if you have five credit cards, each with a $2,000 limit, you have a total $10,000 available credit over all five accounts. If you carry a $1,000 balance on one of the five accounts, you would have a 50% utilization on one card and a 10% utilization over all of your credit.
In general, debt utilization of 30% of less is good for FICO scores. Utilization over 30% is often bad.
Now that you are armed with this – get to work and see what you can accomplish to improve that score. Give me a call, as I’d be more than happy to coach you through this process, as well!
