How to maintain your high credit score
Good on having a high credit score. Now you have to keep it high. Read on for some tips in maintaining your high score.
Life seems good at the top, lower interest rates, lenders requesting you get loans with them and of course higher limits.
It is understood that with this high score you do have financial know-how. Even if it is the most basic rule of paying anyone you owe money to on time. If you noticed it is pay anyone. This anyone includes the late fee on your library book and/or the traffic ticket you are contesting. Not all of those things are reported to credit agencies, but when they are, they can hurt. Even if they’re unjustified. If reported to the credit bureau, there isn’t much you can do about protecting your credit scores during the dispute.
You do have the right to add an explanation of up to 100 words on your credit report. You should also bring this to the attention of the lenders you may be working with at that time so they can make a decision for themselves.
Some good news on this particular issue is that at least two credit bureaus have announced that they’re trying to suppress such accounts from reaching your credit report. However, this is not a fact just yet, so take the necessary precautions to protect your score.
Don’t get fooled into thinking that with your score as high as it is that one late payment won’t count so heavy on the overall record. It has happened where you will fall further than someone at a lower level. True, that one 30 day overdue notice can lose you 100 points.
That one late payment on your good record signals unusual action. Some more bad news is once you do have a bad mark, the time it takes to repair it will be measured in years, not months. In as many as three to four years later that delinquency will count less against you.
Something that is little known about the credit scoring is timing. An example would be that the lender you’re applying with for credit runs your credit report on the 29th of the month. This just happens to be two days before your check arrives to pay off the current balance (in full). If that credit-card balance stands at $9,000 on a $10,000 limit, your report declares that you are utilizing 90% of your credit availability. Your score that day is lower. The end result is the lender will not give you the lowest deserved rate, but something higher based on your debt ratio.
The remedy for this is to make sure you spend no more than 30 percent of your available credit on any one card. Using this information may feel limiting, but it will maintain your higher score and also permit lower interest rates.
Another action which could lower your credit rating is house flipping. This is where you purchase a house, repair or remodel and then resell for a profit. The many mortgages that appear on your credit reports can wreak havoc on your credit score. The credit bureaus do not report the income you made from these transactions, only that you have had several loans.
Your last tip in maintaining this high credit is that you must resist the temptation to close accounts. Closing some accounts can actually strip points as such accounts may include a long-standing history of excellent credit and that may be the one card which lowers your available limits too much. Likewise, opening new accounts and maxing out the credit limit isn’t a good choice.
As stated, your last tip on maintaining a high credit score was given. Here is a tip on how to find unclaimed property; go to CashUnclaimed.com and do a free money search. There are nine out of ten Americans who have money that has been unclaimed. This money may have been in a dormant bank account, some stocks or bonds that were forgotten about or even an unclaimed utility deposit. Whatever the case, there is money that does need to be claimed.
