Government credit report Baton Rouge

Get Smart Borrower tips and advice sent directly to your inbox. Get Smart Borrower tips and advice sent government credit report Baton Rouge directly to your inbox. When you apply for a mortgage, line of credit or even a department-store credit card, the lender will check your credit score. This figure, a measure of your past ability to make payments on time and manage your credit, will be government credit report Baton Rouge somewhere between 300 and 850, with the government credit report Baton Rouge average American coming in around 678, according to Experian’s 2005 National Score government credit report Baton Rouge Index. If your score is too low (most lenders consider anything below 620 government credit report Baton Rouge to be "sub prime," or higher risk) government credit report Baton Rouge you may not get the loan you’re seeking or, if you do, it government credit report Baton Rouge will likely carry a higher interest rate. With so much riding on this number, it’s important to understand what government credit report Baton Rouge factors affect it. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of misinformation floating around about credit scores.

Here are six of the most common myths and the facts to set you straight. The three major government credit report Baton Rouge credit bureaus -- Equifax, TransUnion and Experian -- sell their services under different names, but they all use the same formula to arrive at their numbers. credit bureaus

Your score may vary slightly between the bureaus, however, because each has different information in your file. For example, one government credit report Baton Rouge bureau’s records may go back longer, or a previous lender may have shared its info with only one bureau and not the other two. Unless the scores are wildly at odds, many lenders will use the one in the middle when they consider your application. Having too many credit accounts can negatively affect your credit score, but canceling them may not improve it. To measure your ability to manage debt, credit government credit report Baton Rouge bureaus look at the amount of credit you’re using compared with the total amount you have available. So closing unused accounts reduces your untapped credit and may make you appear overextended. Closing your oldest accounts is even worse because the longer a line of credit is open, the more history you’ve government credit report Baton Rouge accumulated. free credit reports annual If you do close an account, consider closing your newest one and transferring any balance to an older one. When a lender makes an inquiry about your credit, your score has the potential to drop up to five points. For this reason, some borrowers are afraid that comparison-shopping for a mortgage government credit report Baton Rouge or auto loan will result in multiple deductions. The score is set up government credit report Baton Rouge to take into account that even though you are only looking for one loan, multiple lenders may request your credit report (i.e.

For that reason, all mortgage or auto inquiries made in the 30 days prior to when government credit report Baton Rouge you choose your loan will not affect your score.

To determine your score, government credit report Baton Rouge the credit agencies also look back at any auto or mortgage inquiries that were made in the past two government credit report Baton Rouge years (but are older than the 30 day window). If there are any within that 2-year window, all of government credit report Baton Rouge the inquiries that fall into a normal "shopping period" are counted as just one inquiry when determining your score.

The length of the "shopping period" varies government credit report Baton Rouge depending on the version of the FICO government credit report Baton Rouge scoring formula used by your lender and can be either 14 days (older versions of the scoring formula) or 45 days (newer versions of the scoring formula). credit reports free online Here's an example: Say you are applying for a loan and are talking with four lenders.

If you choose a loan within 30 days of those first credit pulls, the inquiries will not affect your score.

The score then looks at the past government credit report Baton Rouge two years of your credit report.

Say you applied for a car loan a year ago with three lenders. If your current lender is using the government credit report Baton Rouge older version of the scoring report, all three inquiries will count as only government credit report Baton Rouge one inquiry, as long as they occurred within 14 days of each other.