Great credit is key to getting good loans. In this market where lending is tight and money isn’t freely flowing, the only way to get someone to lend you money is with good credit. Here are a few ways to achieve this.
Believe it or not, credit monitoring services are actually a good way to make sure your credit stays high. There is usually a charge for it, but these companies will check your credit, and if it changes, send you an email about it so you can deal with it if it’s not an authorized use.
The government has made it law that the credit report agencies need to give you a free report every few months. This not only allows you to stay on top of everything within your credit report but also give you a chance to dispute any changes to it in a timely manner. Just make sure you request it because it won’t be automatically sent to you.
You need to make sure you don’t use up all your credit all the time. This is because part of your credit score is dependent on your utilization rate, a measure of how much credit you have available versus how much you use.
Don’t always try to apply for credit cards. Every time you apply for these cards, the companies will pull your credit report and that puts a mark on your credit. If there are many of these pulls in quick succession, the credit score will suffer because it is believed that only people who really need money will apply for so many lines of credit at the same time.
Inactive cards will eventually be flagged by the credit card companies and be canceled. The credit report will just say canceled by card company without any explanation so use all your cards in regular intervals.
Remember to apply for a few credit cards and have some lines of credit available even if you don’t need it. I used to only have one card and one day I was denied for my business credit card because they told me I only have 1 credit card and haven’t shown that I can pay off debt, even though I have tons of cash in my bank account.
Different types of borrowing will help your credit scores because it shows that you have debt and are proven to be able to manage it. Without it, lenders really won’t know how you will react when the big bills come due every month.
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