Many people do not understand how credit scores work. This is not shocking since the formula used to figure them out is not always logical. However, once you understand a few key points you can take control of your credit score easily.
Key Things to Know to Improve Your Credit Score
- Always Pay Your Bills On Time
When people look at your credit report they can see your payment history on any account that reports to them. Those times you forget to pay a bill or pay it late hurts your credit score. Take the time to set as many the auto-draft up on as many bills as possible. This will makes sure you never pay anything late.
- Avoid Hard Credit Inquiries
You will want to makes sure the credit score api any company is using to check your credit will only make a soft inquiry. This means that it will not hurt your credit. Hard inquiries can lower your credit scores and should only be done by financial institutions.
- Check Your Credit Report Often
You can use a credit score API to pull your credit report. This allows you to check it and make sure that everything is being reported to the 3 major credit bureaus correctly.
- You Can File Disputes On Incorrect Info
If you check your credit report and see that some of the info provided is not correct you can file a dispute. This will require the person that provided the info to prove they are right if they can not the info will be removed or corrected.
- Watch Your Ratio of Used Credit to Available Credit
The ideal ratio is to never exceed using 30% of your available credit. This means if your credit card has a $10,000 limit never let the balance of that card exceed $3,000. If you do it could negatively affect your credit score.
- Number of Accounts VS Average Age of Credit
The more account you have the better so open new credit lines can raise your score in the long haul. However, when you first open a new line of credit your score will drop because it will lower the average age of your credit. This means if you are trying to raise your credit score for a big purchase do not open any new lines of credit.
- Never Close a Credit Card Account
This is directly attached to 6. You want as many open accounts as possible. You also do not want to close accounts because it will make your average age of credit go down and lower your credit score.
Apply Your New Knowledge
Now that you know all the secrets to attain an excellent credit score the “ball is in your court”. Remember the most important thing to do is make sure that you pay everything on time and do not allow any bills to fall behind and enter collections. Having negative info show on your credit report will make your score plummet.
Check your credit report often. There is software available that will let you look at a soft pull of your credit report weekly. Remember to avoid anyone doing a hard pull of your credit report at all costs. The same info is available on both a soft and hard pull. Remember that when you are trying to build your credit up make a big purchase do not open any new credit cards. If you don’t have any you should at least open one so that you can start to build a credit history. If you follow the key points we just went over you will have excellent credit for life.