Having a poor credit record doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to have to be a renter for the rest of your life. On the other hand, what it does mean is that you're going to have to educate yourself about credit scores and their impact on mortgage loan rates.
You're going to have to be ready to get out there and sift through numerous bad credit lenders to find one that will offer you a reasonable deal. You're also going to have to prepare yourself to hand any prospective lender some serious documentation to sway them in your favor.
Fair Isaac & Company (better known as FICO) is the leading company when it comes to calculating and assigning credit scores. Their score (the FICO score) is the one most often used by lenders. Knowing your FICO score gives you a pretty good idea of how prospective lenders will view your credit application and whether or not it has a good chance of being approved.
There are a variety of scores used by different financial institutions. Credit card companies have their variants, and so do insurance companies and car loan lenders, just to name a few examples. What doesn't change, though is this: the higher your score, the better you look. In all cases, the higher your score, the more likely your application will be approved and the better terms you will get.
You might be surprised to learn that you have more than one credit score. That's right! You have three of them, as each credit bureau has their own. While common sense might dictate that they'd all be identical, it's absolutely not the case, because the companies that report our credit activity aren't required to do so to all the bureaus. In order to get your complete credit profile (and not 1/3 of it), you should get your score from all three bureaus.
With so many life-changing credit decisions hanging on people's credit scores, it might sound surprising to point out that a good percentage of credit reports are inaccurate because of errors and/or omissions. That's why you should never take for granted that your file is ok and you should look it over thoroughly to make sure your information is not riddled with mistakes. Anything that's not correct should be reported immediately so as to be corrected. You can check within a month's time to verify that any errors are now gone from your report.
When people have bad credit, they often don't bother knowing how the credit system works, because they think that they're not going to need that information. As it turns out, getting to know the basics of the credit scoring system can prove beneficial. You'll either know what to expect from bad credit finance companies, or you'll decide to take the time to clean up your credit and apply for a loan when your credit profile looks better. In both cases, you come out ahead because an informed customer is always better off than an uninformed one. - 16732
You're going to have to be ready to get out there and sift through numerous bad credit lenders to find one that will offer you a reasonable deal. You're also going to have to prepare yourself to hand any prospective lender some serious documentation to sway them in your favor.
Fair Isaac & Company (better known as FICO) is the leading company when it comes to calculating and assigning credit scores. Their score (the FICO score) is the one most often used by lenders. Knowing your FICO score gives you a pretty good idea of how prospective lenders will view your credit application and whether or not it has a good chance of being approved.
There are a variety of scores used by different financial institutions. Credit card companies have their variants, and so do insurance companies and car loan lenders, just to name a few examples. What doesn't change, though is this: the higher your score, the better you look. In all cases, the higher your score, the more likely your application will be approved and the better terms you will get.
You might be surprised to learn that you have more than one credit score. That's right! You have three of them, as each credit bureau has their own. While common sense might dictate that they'd all be identical, it's absolutely not the case, because the companies that report our credit activity aren't required to do so to all the bureaus. In order to get your complete credit profile (and not 1/3 of it), you should get your score from all three bureaus.
With so many life-changing credit decisions hanging on people's credit scores, it might sound surprising to point out that a good percentage of credit reports are inaccurate because of errors and/or omissions. That's why you should never take for granted that your file is ok and you should look it over thoroughly to make sure your information is not riddled with mistakes. Anything that's not correct should be reported immediately so as to be corrected. You can check within a month's time to verify that any errors are now gone from your report.
When people have bad credit, they often don't bother knowing how the credit system works, because they think that they're not going to need that information. As it turns out, getting to know the basics of the credit scoring system can prove beneficial. You'll either know what to expect from bad credit finance companies, or you'll decide to take the time to clean up your credit and apply for a loan when your credit profile looks better. In both cases, you come out ahead because an informed customer is always better off than an uninformed one. - 16732
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If you're looking for a specific type of bad credit loan, such as for example to buy a house with bad credit in ATL, make sure you visit my personal finance blog where you'll find plenty of money-saving tips.
