This is a big issue as of my writing this. Its a very funny thing having done credit repair services successfully for others, I went a long time not knowing exactly how to raise your credit score. There is a lot of speculation over the matter and when asking people what their score was no one could give me a range of what their credit score was much less an exact number. For most this is because no one really knew and hadn’t bothered to check recently. The normal response was either “I know its pretty high cause I pay everything off” or “I know its pretty low because I owe a lot”. I then bombarded them with questions like “How do you control how much up or down your score goes?” “How do you plan to raise your score?” “If you pay everything off, shouldn’t your score be a perfect 850?”
When you get down to it you can argue that they are two very separate items or two opposite ends of a line. One gets rid of negatives on your credit report and the other adds to the positives. When done correctly and concurrently ones credit score can and often does skyrocket.
More and more people are becoming familiar with credit repair and the whole process of doing so. For those that aren’t I’ll blog that too and return here and insert a link. So for this blog we’ll stay strictly on how to raise your credit score. To understand how to raise your credit score one must research how credit scoring works and what brings a score up and down. Luckily for whoever is reading this because I’ve done the research for you! I’ll try to sum it up as best as I can and as clear as I can make it. So… without further ado..let me show you how to raise your credit score!
Just a quick word about the information here: it was researched and tested so read with confidence. This only works with your revolving credit accounts like credit cards, store cards, gas cards etc. Do not do this with installment accounts like your mortgage and car payments. I would also recommend keeping track of your progress so you see the difference for yourself. myFICO.com offers a service that allows you to track your credit score free for 30 days
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How to raise your credit score step 1. Split your payments and always pay over the minimum. Example: You get your credit card bill and the minimum payment is $100. Immediately make a copy of the payment coupon(the part of the bill you send back with your payment) and send a $50 payment. Wait about 10-12 days after, making sure you’re not going to be late, send another $50 payment plus an extra .50 cents or $1. By doing this you’ve made two payments over the minimum. This is possible because the credit reporting cycle is every 10 days and it doesn’t matter how much over the minimum you pay since it only has to be over the minimum which in this case is $100. The average is 1 point for for every payment made on time over the minimum this does it x2. If you wanted you could even go for 3 but you may be headed toward a late payment.
How to raise your credit score step 2. Keep your balances low compared to your limits. You want to have balances that are no more than 30% of your limit in order to raise your score. For instance if your credit card limit is $3000 you never want to spend more than $1000 on that card. Some of you may have heard not to go over 50%. Truth is at 50% your credit card isn’t helping or hurting your score but the minute you spend over 50% of your available credit your card turns into a negative item because of the high balance. *If you’ve had a credit card for a while call them and ask for limit increases and lower rates, they can do that for you.
How to raise your credit score step 3. The longer you’ve had a card the better. If you’ve had a card for 5 years or more use it because it adds to your score when combined with the steps above.
How to raise your credit score step 4. No new credit. Unless absolutely necessary to build credit. Applying for credit and opening a new account actually damages your score for six months because all new accounts are watched closely. Its always better and easier to use the cards you already have in combination with steps 1-3. To build credit you can buy or ask or ask someone you know for a seasoned trade line.(explained later)
How to raise your credit score step 5. Use a number of cards. You’ll want to have cards of all types that you use in your daily life. The basic reason you get a good credit score is using your credit cards and using them wisely! A good combination to use is 5 major cards like Visa, Mastercard, and AMEX; along with 2 or 3 store and 2 or 3 gas cards but make sure they report your good credit history on your report. You’ll want to use store cards from places you shop regularly and gas cards from places you fill up at.
Using these steps combined should improve your score no less than 50 points per month. Also pay your bills starting with the largest amounts to the smallest. Reason being if you were to miss a payment the larger the payment the more damaging to your credit score.
If you’re in a situation where you don’t have many credit cards to start with you can add positive points by getting a seasoned trade lines. Seasoned trade lines are simply credit card accounts that have been open and in use for a good amount of time. Since we’re talking credit, seasoned trade lines five years and older are considered golden. They normally also have the characteristics mentioned above. People who are well managed enough to have seasoned trade lines often give them to friends and loved ones instead of cosigning for their loans while others sell them to those in need of a quick credit score boost.
How do I get one you ask? Well you have to know someone with good credit or at least one credit account they’ve had for a long while and stayed current with the payments. If they agree to giving you a seasoned trade line,they simply call that credit card company and give them some information like your name and social security number and request that you be added to their account as an authorized user. In about 20-30 days their good credit account now shows on your credit report. Now you won’t get any kind of access to the account or a credit card but your score will jump 35 points easy. There are also services that sell seasoned trade lines. Beware…unlike cosigning there is no danger to the one giving a seasoned trade line only to the receiver. If the person giving a trade line misses a payment or files bankruptcy then the receiver’s credit is history. FICO has announced the release of a new software the catches and subtracts these kins of accounts from your credit score. Sources say it won’t be in widespread use until the middle of this year.
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