You Credit Score: How's Your FICO?

Since we live in an automated world, it's not surprising that your ability to repay your mortgage boils down to just one number. All the years you've been paying your various bills: your mortgage, vehicle payments, and credit card bills can be analyzed, diced, spindled and mutilated into a single indicator of whether you're likely to meet your future obligations.

Equifax, TransUnion, and Experian, the three major credit reporting agencies, each have their own proprietary formula for building a credit score. Fair Isaac and Cooriginally developed this score. . While Experian still calls its score "FICO", TransUnion calls its score "Beacon" and Equifax uses "Empirica." While these methods vary, all of the agencies use the following to calculate your score:

• Credit History - How many years have you had credit?
• Payment History - Do you pay your bills on time?
• Balances on your Credit Cards - How many accounts do you hold, and how much do you owe on them?
• Credit Inquiries - How many times have you had your credit checked for a loan?

These factors are assigned weights based on the formula being used. The result is a single number: your credit score. FICO scores range from 300 to 800. Higher scores are better. Most home buyers in the current environment have a score above 620.

Credit scores make a difference in interest rates

Did you know? FICO scores affect more than your ability to get a loan. They also affect your interest rate. Lenders give lower interest rates to individuals with higher scores.

Improving your score

Unfortunately, there isn't a lot you can do to immediately improve your credit score. Because the score is based on your lifelong credit history, it's difficult to make a significant improvement in the number with quick fixes. You should appeal for the credit agency to remove any incorrect data on your credit report, which is the only way to quickly improve your credit score.

Getting your credit score

To improve your score, you must have the credit reports that the agencies use to build it. Of course, you need the score as well. Fair Isaac has created a web site (www.myFICO.com) that lets you do just that. It's inexpensive, fast, and easy to get your credit score along with reports from all three credit reporting agencies. Also available are information and online tools that help you understand how to improve your FICO score.

You can get a free credit report once a year from all three credit reporting agencies at AnnualCreditReport.com. While this report does not include a free credit score, the cost to "upgrade" your report to include a credit score is very reasonable.

Armed with this information, you will be a more informed consumer and you'll be better positioned to obtain the right mortgage for you.

Curious about credit scores? Call us: 720-598-8300.