Questions: Do you have any advice for somebody who needs help improving their credit score to qualify for a better loan?
Answer: This is not the time or place to air my grievances with the US credit score system, but as it stands today and for well into the future, your credit score plays a significant role in your ability to get a mortgage and cost of your mortgage.
There are some strategies for to marginally increase your credit score over a short period of time, but the best thing you can do for a future home purchase is develop strong habits that lead to a great, long-term credit score.
For years, I have valued the wisdom and education of Paul Nagel, an excellent mortgage lender with Main Street Home Loans ([email protected] or 703-201-5147) and he recently shared an excellent article with me that he authored on the five habits of people with high credit scores that I thought was valuable to present to you in the form of a guest post.
Here is what Paul has to say…
Before going further, I’m required to state that I am not a credit repair professional, and this is based on my observations while helping clients obtain home financing over the past two decades. I’ve never seen anyone have these habits and not have excellent credit scores, and I hope the following observations can benefit you.
Habit #1: Micromanage your bills during atypical life events
Late payments hurt your credit score, but it’s surprisingly uncommon that late payments caused by a lack of available funds. Most often, late payments or collections are the result of poorly monitored bills during atypical life events.
There are two life events you should pay attention to that most often lead to mistaken late payments or collections:
- Medical Emergencies: The complexity of our healthcare system often leads to late or missed payments so be proactive in asking for bills and making sure treatments are completely paid off
- Moving: Late payments and collections associated with a move often happen for two reasons. First, a utility (or similar) bill may have an outstanding balance that goes unnoticed after the move, and this overlooked balance becomes a collection and large negative event on a credit report. Second, you forgot to notify a vendor of your new address and bills get sent to your old address and missed in your busy inbox. Find a moving checklist that contains reminders of all the different vendors/bills people usually have to help you remember who to notify.
Habit #2: Keep credit card balances under 45% of each card’s maximum limit
A computer program called the FICO Scoring Model accumulates your credit information and generates a score based on this information. One of the inputs is the current balance on each of your credit cards relative to the maximum credit limit for each credit card. Rightly or wrongly, this computer program will reduce your credit score if the balance of any credit card is over 45% of the maximum line of credit.
Should you have unusually high expenses one month that exceed the 45% balance, the score will adjust and improve once the algorithm is re-run after paying it down, but there will be a period of time prior to when your score is lower because of the high balance.
Habit #3: If a negative event happens, fix it right away
It’s nearly impossible to live a life free of negative credit events, but people with consistently high credit scores make fixing these issues a top priority when they happen rather than letting them linger (and possibly forgetting).
Your credit score will begin to “heal” as soon as the negative event is corrected, but it can take time for the score to fully recover so time is of the essence.
Habit #4: Keep it simple with 2-4 cards from large institutions
Rewards and perks are tempting, but the more cards you have in use, the higher the chance you have of missing a payment or mistakenly exceeding the 45% balance rule. Keep it simple to maximize the life-long benefits of a high credit score.
Typically, store credit cards have a lower credit limit and are easier to exceed the 45% balance rule with. Larger banking institutions tend to offer the highest credit limits and thus allow you to more easily stay under the 45% mark.
Habit #5: Avoid frivolous credit card inquiries
Be thoughtful and infrequent with credit card inquiries (applications for new lines of credit), this includes rewards cards from a store or airline. All credit inquiries lower your credit score, but not all inquiries are created equal.
A credit card inquiry is much more harmful and longer lasting than a mortgage inquiry. You can also have multiple mortgage application inquiries within a two-week period and it will only count as one inquiry.
Limit your credit card inquiries to times when you know you are ready to open a new line of credit, have done your homework on the card, and are confident that it will be a long-term card for you.
One final tip from personal and professional experience – occasionally we are improperly billed a small, frustrating amount from a vendor. If you are unable to correct it in a timeline manner, consider cutting your losses and paying it, rather than fight it all the way into collections. The cost of having a small, albeit improper, bill getting sent to collections can be much greater than the cost of paying it off. You can continue to fight it after paying it off.
I hope you find Paul’s guidance helpful. If you have any questions about good credit practices, ideas for short-term boosts to your credit score, or anything mortgage lending related you can reach Paul Nagel of Main Street Home Loans at [email protected] or 703-201-5147.
If you’d like to discuss buying, selling, investing, or renting, don’t hesitate to reach out to me at [email protected].
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