5 ways to repair credit and borrow money easier
March 11th, 2010 by AustinYour Credit Score
What is on your credit report makes all the difference on your next loan application and your ability to borrow money. A good FICO score is the key to success. That said, if your credit has been in the firing line recently, you’ll have to do some repairs. The good news is there is still hope and you can easily impress a scrutinizing loan officer by implementing a few simple strategies discussed in this article.
How lenders grade your credit worthiness
There are other factors lenders look at when underwriting a loan. To track these factors, lenders use FICO scores to put everyone on a scale and quantify credit-worthiness. This is a useful way to make decisions about a persons:
- - loan balances
- - ability to pay it back
- - payment history
- - history of seeking credit
To repair your credit, follow the steps below and your FICO score will improve accordingly.
Step 1: Make a plan
Planning on applying for a loan before you do can affect the outcome. If your credit score is poor, you can make changes to the good in 3 to 6 months. What is most unfortunate is how little attention people devote to planning.
A poor (or, less than stellar) credit rating can not only affect your approval status, but it can also affect the amount of interest you will pay. As such, planning before applying not only improves your chances for getting approved, but it also saves you money in the long run by lowering your borrowing costs.
Step 2: Pay down loan balances
Put simply, if you are using all of your credit (or worse, exceeding it) you aren’t likely going to get approved for more debt.
As a rule of thumb, you should not go over 75% of the credit limit of any account. Notice, that’s credit limit for each individual account, not all accounts combined. If you have a credit card with a $ 1,000 limit, pretend that the limit is actually only $ 750 and commit to sticking to this personally-imposed reduced limit. Apply the same formula to your other cards and their limits. This can impact your score noticeably, which helps you if you try to borrow money later. Use the next 3 to 6 months to bring your limits down to ideal levels.
Step 3: Know about your ability to pay
Beyond usage, another factor relating to loan balances will help you. If you have too many accounts open and not enough income to service those accounts, lenders might classify you as a risk that they’re not willing to take.
Unfortunately, if this is the case, there’s little you can do. You could pay down your balances, which would be good for your FICO score anyway, but it won’t eliminate all the excess credit you have (which will still affect your debt ratios).
If you are tempted to close down some of your accounts that you don’t use, think again. Closing down accounts is not universally a good idea as it can negatively affect your credit. The best advice is to not open useless accounts (such as department stores or specialty cards you don’t need) and lower your balances. Working to improve other factors will help your score overall.
Step 4: Shape up payment habits
If you’ve had late payments in the past, your score will take a hit as a result. That said, if you improve your payment history from today forward, the activity will be reported and you’ll boost your FICO score. Vow to make all of your payments on time – from this day forward!
Step 5: Do not seek credit
If you plan to apply for a loan in the next 3 – 6 months, do not seek any credit whatsoever between now and the time that you apply. Every time you try to get credit, you get a “hit” on your report. Hits bring your FICO score down. While they don’t make huge impacts, having plenty of them (and, being subsequently rejected) is not a good situation for prospective lenders to discover when they pull your report.
Putting the above strategies to use and you’ll see improvements in your FICO score. Lenders want to make sure you aren’t a risk if you want to borrow money. They actually want to lend out as much money as they can. That is how profit is made, after all. However, before profits, lenders have another priority and that is to protect their capital. If you do all your homework, and launch a plan in advance and put the strategies discussed in this article into play, you will come out ahead.