How's your FICO Score?

Since we live in an automated society, it should come as no surprise that your ability to repay your mortgage loan comes down to a single number. All the years you've been paying your various bills: your mortgage, vehicle payments, and credit card bills are analyzed, spindled and mutilated into a single indicator of whether you're likely to meet your future obligations.

Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax, the three major credit reporting agencies, each have their own proprietary formula for building a credit score. The original FICO was developed by Fair Isaac and Company. While Experian still calls its score "FICO", TransUnion calls its score "Beacon" and Equifax uses "Empirica." While each of the models considers a range of data available in your credit report, the differences aren't huge; they all use the following factors to calculate your credit score:

• Credit History - Have you had credit for years, or for just a short time?
• Late Payments - Do you pay your bills on time?
• Balances on your Credit Cards - How many credit card accounts do you have, and how much do you owe on them?
• Credit Inquiries - How many times have lenders pulled your credit report for the purpose of lending you money?

Each of these factors is assigned a value and a weight. The results are added up and distilled into a single number. Credit scores can be as low as 300 and as high as 800. Higher is always better. Most people who want to get a mortgage these days have a score above 620.

Not just for qualifying

Did you know? FICO scores affect more than your ability to get a loan. They also affect your interest rate. Higher scores indicate you are probably a better credit risk, and thus may qualify for a better mortgage rate.

Raising your FICO score

What can you do to improve your FICO score? Very little in the short term. Some companies promise quick fixes, but they can't do anything different than what you can do — for free. You should, of course, appeal for the credit agency to remove any incorrect reporting on your credit report; this is the only way to quickly improve your credit score.

Know your FICO

To improve your credit score, you've got to have the 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 credit reports from all three agencies. Also available are information and online tools that help you understand how to improve your credit score.

You can get a federally-mandated free credit report once a year from all three credit reporting agencies at AnnualCreditReport.com. These reports do not include a free score, but it's very inexpensive to get one at the same time.

Now that you have all the facts, you'll be a more informed consumer and you'll be better positioned to get the right mortgage for you.

Want to know more about your FICO score? Give us a call: 8132007931.