Posted on 06/09/2016 10:03:29 PM PDT by Graybeard58
No number is more important to prospective home buyers than their credit score. Put simply, these three digits are a numerical representation of your track record paying off your debts, from credit cards to college loans. If you’ve applied for a mortgage to buy a home, lenders check your credit score. If it’s high, getting a mortgage will be a breeze; if it’s low, you may struggle.
So now that we’ve got your attention, the question remains: Exactly what is a good credit score?
Here’s the deal: A perfect credit score is 850. But all scores 760 and above are considered to be in the best credit score range. Since this means you’ve shown an excellent ability to pay off your past debts, mortgage lenders want your business—and will try to entice you by offering loans with the lowest interest rates, says Richard Redmond, mortgage broker at All California Mortgage in Larkspur and author of “Mortgages: The Insider’s Guide.”
A good score is from 700 to 759; a fair score is from 650 to 699. Since a lower score means you’ve had some late payments or other dings on your credit history, lenders see you as more likely to default on your home loan. They may still give you a mortgage, but at a higher interest rate, says Bill Hardekopf, a credit expert at LowCards.com.
Credit scores below 650 are deemed poor, meaning your credit history has had some rough patches. This doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t qualify for a loan, but it may be tough, and you’ll pay a higher interest rate for the privilege.
How credit scores are calculated
Three major U.S. credit bureaus track and tally your scores: Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion. Their scores should be roughly similar, although each pulls from slightly different sources (Experian looks at rent payments while TransUnion checks out your employment history). But by and large, here are the main variables that determine your score, and to what degree: •Payment history (35%): This is whether you’ve made debt payments on time. If you’ve never missed a payment, a 30-day delinquency can cause as much as a 90- to 110-point drop in your score.
•Debt-to-credit utilization (30%): This is how much debt you’ve accumulated on your credit card accounts, divided by the credit limit on the sum of your accounts. Ratios above 30% work against you. So if you have a total credit limit of $5,000, you will want to be in debt no more than $1,500 when you apply for a mortgage.
•Length of credit history (15%): It’s beneficial to have a track record of being a responsible credit user. A longer credit history boosts your score. CreditKarma.com, a credit-monitoring service, found that its members with scores above 750 have an average credit history of 7.5 years.
•Credit mix (10%): Your credit score ticks up if you have a rich combination of different types of credit accounts, such as credit cards, retail store credit cards, installment loans, and a previous mortgage.
•New credit (10%): Research shows that opening several new credit accounts within a short period of time represents greater risk to the mortgage lender, according to myFICO.com, so avoid applying for new credit accounts if you’re about to buy a home. Also, each time you open a new credit account, the average length of your credit history decreases (further hurting your credit score).
How to check your credit score
You can check your own credit report—and should, because it will help you pinpoint areas for improvement. Even if you’re fairly sure you’ve never made a late payment, one in four Americans finds errors on his credit report, according to a 2013 Federal Trade Commission survey.
Errors are common because creditors make mistakes reporting customer slip-ups. For example, although you may have never missed a payment, someone with the same name as you did—and your bank recorded the error on your account by accident.
“God has been good to me.”
Understatement in my case.....considering my youthful transgressions...
I know a lady whose husband abandoned her and her daughter and ran off with a stripper. The divorce financially devastated her. Her house went to foreclosure and she had to declare bankruptcy.
The last time I saw her she told me that her credit score had incredibly skyrocketed to 780. Being freed from the debt trap the banks just could not wait to reel her back in.
Dave Ramsey is right. Your credit score is nothing but a measure of how well you kiss a*s to the banks. Worry about the basics, not this score.
And never buy anything big, appliance, car, tv while in escrow. I know of a couple that went to HOme Depot while in escrow and purchased appliances on credit, the house they were buying had none. They did not get the loan as their ratios changed that much having new credit.
Wells Fargo Bank has lowered their scores to 620, it makes me so mad, they are not qualified with that kind of score.
I'm sure I don't have one. No plastic.
I own a number of houses, all fsbo's. A few rules of thumb:
Don't even look at anything requiring a bank mortgage.
Don't count on a property generating income.
Look for properties at tax sales, and look for fsbo's, and if financing has to happen, go with seller financing. Avoid properties listed with a realtor.
I've been doing this for a few years (while my friends have been drinking and wenching through college). I've never had to lay out more than $2k for anything, up front. How am I doing? Let's just say it's "lucrative." :)
Dave Ramsey teaches credit classes, he says that since he is all cash all the time, he would not qualify to rent an apartment, but he has enough money to buy the apartment.
You need a minimum FICO score of 620 to qualify for a VA mortgage loan.
The perfect borrower, you are. Once you can prove you don’t need the loan, lenders are pounding you with offers.
Some lenders LOVE responsible people on public assistance for two reasons: (a)their source of income is considered more stable than those with crappy jobs, (b)brownie points from Fedzilla for getting them into homes and extra brownie points if they are a favored minority group.
"Responsible people on public assistance" sounds like an oxymoron, but there are some of them out there who don't spend all the spare change which they have on booze, drugs, smokes, lottery tickets, premium cable packages and the like.
Paid off the credit cards, the mortgage, the car. Got a fantastic credit rating now that I no longer have the slightest intention of using it. I just wish they’d leave me alone. Do I have to get back in debt for that?
Sorry!
Not necessarily so. A good credit score also gets you better insurance rates. Just like with the bank; it shows the insurance company you are either responsible or not or just so so.
Yeah, can't steal anything from THEM, right? < /sarc >
#2 You do not have good credit in the eyes of the credit card companies if you do not keep those 10%, 20% 30% cards. You get dinged points by getting 0% cards for a year then cutting them up after the year to get new 0% cards. They ding you for having others check your rating when you get a car or home.
Go to http://www.credit.com for a really free report.
They update once a month.
We’re retired, own everything we have and can pay directly for anything we want/need - with no reason for a loan.
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That’s where my wife and I are but last year, in November, we cashed a check from Capital One for $905.00, for cash back points. 01.5% for purchases. Our new balance on points is up to $285.00 now. Around Christmas time in 2017 we’ll cash in again, should be over $1,000 by then. We never have paid a cent in interest.
The banks charge merchants a minimum of 03%, so we both are making money.
I tried to buy a new car on the credit card and pay it off at the end of the month but the dealer wouldn’t go for it.
When someone lists their EBT card as a source of income, they may not qualify for a loan.
Each month I contact the company by phone, and authorize them to take a certain amount out of my checking account.
I’ve been doing this for over a decade without any problems.
I connect to Capital One and authorize them to take the money a couple of days before the due date.
With any of the companies, the day before is fine, but I like to provide more time than that. That being said, I have also made payments on the due date with no problem. As long as I authorize the payment before their cut-off, they’re fine with it.
I don’t used the mail for bills. I just don’t trust it, when it comes to timelines and due dates.
Error:
“Each month I contact the company by phone, and authorize them to take a certain amount out of my checking account.”
I don’t contact them by phone. I seldom talk to them unless I have a problem. I meant contact them over the internet.
Let me get this correct, someone can make enough on Federal and State Assistance to qualify for a home mortgage? Wow! No wonder 94 million Americans have stopped looking for a job!
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