Get The Best Credit

Credit Report 101

To understand how to get the best credit you must know what is a credit report and how they are used. You also need to know what a credit repository is in their role in affecting your credit. First a credit repository is a company that gathers information from member companies about the credit that you have with them. They provide a means for the creditors to report information to them regarding your credit account. The information they then report is called of course a credit report. By law the credit repositories (commonly known as credit bureaus) are to be an unbiased third party that reports factual information about your credit history with your creditors. In fact they are generally paid by the creditors and therefore align with them unless you force the issue.

Credit Repositories

There are 3 major national credit bureaus; Trans Union, Experian and Equifax. Each credit is national but they have there regions where they are predominate in. Many creditors choose not to join all three repositories and may opt to join the 1 or 2 that are predominant in the area they do business in. Even some national creditors do not report to all repositories. The cost that the creditor pays to be a member of the credit repository depends on a number of things. One feature is how often they report. Some creditors report once a month and others choose a bi monthly or quarterly option to save money. Even more creditors choose to report monthly to one credit repository and less frequently to others as a cost saving measure. With this in mind you will sometimes notice that the credit report may sometimes have information 3 months old or older. Therefore the balances and sometimes other information are almost always wrong. Another feature of the credit repositories is that they report what the lender tells them and until recently there was not an effective way for you to challenge the information. Today you can challenge the information and the creditor has 30 days to respond or the repository must go with the information you provide. Knowing how the credit repositories work and knowing your rights with them and the information they publish as your credit report will help you better manage your credit and get the best credit.

Know Your Rights

To get the best credit you must know your rights as a consumer. You do have many rights and there have been many lawsuits that the credit reporting agencies have lost that caused them to pay major damages to consumers. Now they are more consumer friendly than in the past. It is still not easy to navigate the gatekeepers, but believe me it is much easier than it was in the past. One important tool that you have today is the ability to get a free copy of your credit report once a year. You do this by going to http://anualcreditreport.com and you can instantly get your free copy of your credit report from the 3 major repositories. This is very helpful to see what they are reporting on your report and to be able to challenge any false information immediately. It is also very important that you get a credit report from each repository and manage it because they are different. As mentioned earlier all creditors do not report to all repositories and if they do they not report to all repositories monthly.

Manage Your Credit

The most important factor in you being able to get the best credit is to manage your credit. To manage your credit entails a number of things including:

• A Personal Budget
• Pay Bills on Time
• Manage Your Balances
• Monitor Your Credit Reports
• Be Proactive

Knowing how the credit repositories work, while understanding basic information about what is a credit report and being proactive to manage your credit will help you get the best credit in all situations.

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Get The Best Credit.

One issue that we all face in life is we want to get and maintain the best credit possible. We can never underestimate the importance of a budget to get or maintain the best credit. Living with our means and managing our resources properly will not only help us get and maintain a good credit score, but it will give us peace and eliminate stress from our lives. Truly managing our money is more important the getting a lot of money. For if you get and can not manage it you will soon be without it.

The Importance of a Budget.

A budget allows us to first track our income and our spending. Before we can control anything we need to know what we have and how we use it. This knowledge then helps us to create a life plan with realistic goals because we know how to financially achieve our life goals. Living on a budget is more about managing your life than counting your pennies. A good budget: helps you to save and invest money; manage your credit; create ownership; have peace of mind; and prioritize your life. If I had to tell a young person what is the most important thing they could do to have a successful life, the first would be to develop a relationship with God, then prepare themselves with proper education and to live on a budget. These are all things that would lead to their success no matter what they do in life.

Budget and Credit.

So ultimately and finally focus on living within your means, track your spending and income, plan your purchases and manage your credit all with your personal budget. Do these things and you will achieve your financial goals.

Be Blessed. Be a Blessing.

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Improve Your Fico Credit Scores.

To get the best credit and interest rates you must have the best fico credit scores. These strategies will help you improve your fico credit scores and qualify for the best mortgage rates, auto loan rates and credit cards. Implement these to improve your credit score today.

Legal Credit Repair.

You have the right to legal credit repair. Whether you do it yourself or hire a professional company to assist you to remove items off of your report that are either inaccurate, improperly reporting or just do not meet the legal standards required for the credit reporting agencies to follow in reporting your credit history. So the number one strategy that many people use to improve their credit scores is to dispute those items. It is an effective method especially if the you stick to it. Unfortunately, the credit reporting agencies are not eager to help you. In some cases they have been known to arbitrarily dismiss many consumers disputes as frivolous and unfounded. This deters a lot of people. It has been said that as much as 20% of all disputes submitted to the credit reporting agencies are dismissed as frivolous. That means 80% are reviewed and worked on. Chances are if you dispute the inaccuracies one or 2 more rounds that they will be properly reviewed and handled.

Reduce Your Balances and or Increase Your Credit Limits.

A second strategy almost as effective as disputing negative items on your credit report is to reduce the balances on your credit cards and or increase your limits. The balanced owed on a credit card as a percentage of the high credit limit affects your credit score. They higher that ratio the lower your score. The lower the ratio the higher the score. This factor alone can account for one client who pays his bills on time every month with a credit score of 750 while another client who also pays their bills on time every month only has a 600 score. A 750 is considered very good credit while a 600 score is fair and the consumer would not qualify for most credit programs. If they do qualify they would pay a higher costs. On time payments account for 35% of your credit score. The available credit percentage factor represents 30% of your credit score. These two strategies alone can account for 65% of your total score.

Negotiate Old Collections and Late Payments.

The older negative items are on your report the less impact they have on your credit score. To improve your fico credit score you want to remove them completely from the report. If you pay them off or make payment arrangements you create a new activity that make the negative item a recent activity therefore effectively lowering or worsening your score. This is the exact opposite of what your intentions may be. To improve your score negotiate with the creditor to pay the item off at a reduced amount and for that they must complete remove the item from the credit bureau. You must get this in writing before you send them the money. Otherwise they have no incentive to follow through and remove the item.

Finally Strategies.

These three strategies will help you improve your credit score and allow you to qualify for the best credit at the lowest interest rates. Other strategies to remember is time. The longer an account is open the more positive points you add to your credit score. The type of accounts you have also affect your score. Mortgages and installment loans have the highest value, then major bank credit followed by national department store accounts. All other accounts, though they affect your credit score they have less of a positive impact. Use these strategies to improve your credit, get a mortgage, credit card or auto loan.

Louis J.

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