So lenders will now be able to see whether you have any child support judgments or property tax liens, as well as any evictions or applications for payday loans. The company also claims to catch mortgages made by smaller lenders that the big credit bureaus may have missed, as well as any property that you own outright. And the list goes on.

CoreLogic has also partnered with FICO to create a credit score based on this new data, which will initially be used by mortgage and home equity lenders. While the score will be released in March, the “CoreScore” credit report became available to all types of lenders on Wednesday.

Within a year, the new report will be available through annualcreditreport.com, where consumers are entitled to one free copy annually. That’s the same rule that applies to each of the big bureau’s reports on the site currently. Until then, you can call 877-532-8778 to get a copy.

What do you think of this development? Will you get a copy of this new report? If you do, let us know how it compares to the traditional credit reports.

Different values in the Credit Score Range

The highest credit score available is classed as “Excellent” and this refers to a score of 800 and higher. To achieve an excellent score, you must be extremely disciplined with your finances, making sure you pay all due loan and credit card payments in full and ahead of time. Generally speaking, you must have used a significant amount of credit (i.e., more than just a single credit card). If you are lucky enough to have an excellent score, you will never be turned down for credit by any lender or financial institution and you will be awarded the lowest interest rates on the market.

The next highest credit score is “Very good” and this refers to a score between 700 and 799. It is estimated that around 25% of Americans fall within this range, which is a good place to be. With a very good score you can be confident of being approved for both secured and unsecured loans at good (low) interest rates.

A score between 680 and 699 is a “good” score and again there should be no problem being approved for credit, but interest rates will be significantly higher than those offered to consumers with very good and excellent scores. If getting a loan is not a matter of urgency, you may want to consider putting it off to give yourself time to increase your score to around 720. You would then be able to take advantage of lower interest rates, reducing the total sum of money you have to pay back. Most people in the United States fall into the “good” category.

Lower Credit Score Range

An “Ok” or “Fair” credit score is classed as 620 to 679. Whether you are approved for credit or not comes down to each individual lender; they all have different criteria. If you are approved, your loan will be subject to high interest rates and other terms and conditions. Again, it is worth considering whether you want to take time to improve your score in order to receive lower interest rates.

A “Poor” credit score is 580 to 619 and you should be prepared to agree to some unattractive terms and very high rates of interest. Be aware that this means you will have to pay back a lot more — over a longer period of time — than the original loan amount. A “Bad” credit score is 500 to 579 and while you may still be able to get a loan, you should carefully weigh up the pros and cons before signing an agreement. If you default on payments, you will quickly make your situation even worse and may even end up bankrupt. A “Very bad” credit score (499 or lower) means that you are unlikely to be approved for credit and you should seek immediate professional help. If your score is poor, bad or very bad, you should take action to repair past mistakes and start the process of rebuilding your credit rating.

Banks, particularly regional and community financial firms, are struggling with defaults on both residential and commercial mortgages. To stay out of the clutches of the FDIC, they have become remarkably cautious about lending, even to people with good credit scores.

The number of people who have been unemployed for over six months is now in the millions and nearly 25 million Americans are out of work. This population is not likely to see their credit scores repaired for years.

The young, for years targets for credit card companies, are unemployed at higher rates than people over 25. That means that this “feeder” population for credit cards is falling and some of these people noe have no credit scores at all.

Another trend that has hurt credit scores immensely is the disappearance of home equity loans which were once taken out by huge numbers of Americans who had houses worth more than their mortgages. Now, more than 11 million mortgages in the US are underwater. People are abandoning homes that are being foreclosed upon. Either of those actions severely damages credit ratings.

One of the long-term effects of low credit scores is a likely long-term drop in consumer spending. People often cannot afford to buy things by paying cash. And austerity is the rule of the day.

Douglas A. McIntyre

A very important group to look at is those with moderate credit scores, 650 to 699. The amount of people in this bracket is currently 11.9 percent of consumers, down from 12 percent in 2008. While the drop off is not that significant it is worth noting that the average number of consumers with these credit scores is usually 15 percent.

The consumers with moderate FICO credit scores could be in the most trouble when it comes to lending. Consumers with scores below 600 most likely would not try to borrower but those with moderate scores may try to obtain loans. In previous years these were seen as good credit scores for obtaining loans but standards have toughened and these scores aren’t as good as they once were. These tightened standards may make it much tougher for these people to obtain loans, especially with the best mortgage rates.

There are some positives when looking at the trends in our consumer’s credit score. The amount of consumers with an 800 credit score, a perfect score, has gone up recently. Currently 17.9 percent of consumers have a perfect score. This is significantly larger than the past average with is about 13 percent. These consumers with good credit scores should have no trouble obtaining any type of loan.

It is pretty easy to ruin a good credit credit score but it can me very difficult to fix credit scores.

Source: totalmortgage.com

For instance, many people think that if they pay their bills on time, their credit score must be good. Right? Wrong, say our experts. Even if you always pay on time, if your cards are close to being maxed out, your score isn’t going to be as high as it could be, since borrowing up to the hilt looks like a risk factor to the credit bureaus. Surprised? Read on to find out five more credit secrets that can help you get the credit score you deserve.

1. Pay off revolving debt first. There are two different kinds of debt most of us carry: installment debts, which are generally secured by collateral (such as a car loan), and revolving debt, such as credit card balances. Since credit card balances are unsecured — the company can’t repossess the spoils of your last shopping spree if you don’t pay up — they’re viewed as much riskier in the FICO equation. As a result, paying off revolving debt boosts your credit score more than paying off a comparable amount of installment debt. “Paying off installment debt has such a small impact on your score,” says Ulzheimer. “Last year, I paid off a $284,000 mortgage and my score went up four points.” In other words, put that overtime check, bonus or tax refund toward credit card bills if you want the most bang for your high-score buck.

2. Payments to collection agencies don’t boost your score. By the time a debt goes to a third-party collection firm, the original lender (your credit card company, for instance) has already written off the loan as a loss and noted that delinquency on your report. While there are a host of good reasons — such as not getting sued and not being pestered with phone calls at all hours — to pay the bill once a third party collector has it, those payments won’t count toward your FICO score and won’t erase the notation of delinquency.

Likewise, if you get dinged with an insufficient funds fee at your bank and “retaliate” by closing the account or not putting any more money into it, you can get slapped with a collection action by your bank that will negatively impact your score. “In addition to bank account debt, such collection accounts can also arise from utility bills, parking tickets, and even library fines – and can often impact your score as much as unpaid credit card or loan debt,” Paperno warns. Bottom line: Pay those bills before they’re sent to a collection agency if you want to preserve your score.

3. Accentuate the positive. While you obviously want to make sure that black marks like missed payments don’t stay on your report any longer than necessary, it’s perfectly okay and even desirable to have old accounts that were in good standing still listed. For instance, say you paid off a car loan and never made a late payment on it. While you could lobby the bureaus to take that information off your report, it’s more beneficial to leave it on, says Ulzheimer. “This is a great example of when less is more. Don’t ask them to take it off if it’s in good standing.”

4. Opening and closing accounts can lower your score. “FICO’s research has found that opening a new account is predictive of increased risk, and opening any type of credit account or loan action can lower one’s score,” explains Paperno. The good news, he adds, is that your score will rise back to its original level within a few months if you keep the balance low and make your payments on time.

Closing cards can ding you because it skews your credit utilization ratio — that is, how much of your available credit you’ve used — when that line of credit suddenly vanishes. For this reason, experts say to use all your cards at least occasionally. An unused card does you no good if the issuer cancels it due to inactivity.

5. Borrowing more to pay down your debt is dicey. Despite the fact that Americans are often pitched offers of “consolidation” loans by their bank or mortgage lender, taking on more debt to eliminate your credit card bills is a risky proposition. “You’re borrowing from Peter to pay Paul,” says Ulzheimer. Since most consolidation loans are home equity loans backed by your house, failure to get a handle on your spending and pay off your debts as intended could have catastrophic consequences, he points out. “If you miss these payments, the down side is much more significant.” There’s also the fact, as we pointed out above, that opening new accounts can at least temporarily lower your score.

However, taking out an installment loan to pay off your credit card bills could prove beneficial — with one significant caveat. As Paperno points out, installment debt doesn’t drag down your score the way a bunch of maxed out credit cards can, so if — and this is the big “if” — you have the discipline to pay off your cards with that new loan money and stop using the cards until the installment loan is paid off, you could raise your score. But as Paperno points out, it takes a super-sized helping of discipline in order to make this tactic successful.

Source: walletpop.com

“Both short sales and foreclosures are considered negative by the score, because our data shows us it’s very predictive of future credit risk,” Tom Quinn, Fair Isaac Corp.’s vice president of FICO scores, said. “The claim that doing a short sale is not going to hurt your score is false. It’s inaccurate.”

Credit scores, which are designed to assess how likely it is that consumers will uphold their side of the bargain, look at the severity (are we talking bankruptcy or a late car payment?), frequency (have you skipped a payment once, or have you missed a bunch?), and recently (did you miss a payment last month or last year?) of items on your credit report.

This is not to say that there aren’t some instances where short sales are better. If a borrower is current at the point of a short sale, for instance, then the consumer’s credit score won’t sink as far as it would have if he hadn’t made a mortgage payment for six months. Still, Fair Isaac says that the benefit from not having prior delinquencies on file pales when compared with the hit a score takes from a short sale.

If you’re having mortgage trouble, seek help right away from a housing counselor or an attorney. Realtors are the go-to professionals to learn about the local housing market and what it takes to sell your home.

But they aren’t credit experts. And don’t pay someone a lot of money if they promise to quickly rehab your credit score after foreclosure. Credit scores are forgiving — over time.

Source: thestate.com

Raising the score takes time and any attempts at quick fixes can easily backfire. The key is for an individual to practice responsible credit management over a long period. There are online calculators, including one provided by FICO, one of the major entities that determine credit scores. Reviewing these tools will illustrate just how much money individuals can save by improving their credit scores.

The most obvious way to improve the score is to pay bills on time. The longer period the bills are paid timely, the better the credit score will be. If an account goes into collections, subsequently paying it off will not remove the account from a credit report until seven years have passed. Therefore, individuals should contact the creditor once it is determined that the account cannot be paid on time to see if alternate payment arrangements can be made.

Additional guidelines include keeping outstanding credit card balances low and paying off debt rather than juggling it between cards. Individuals should not close cards in order to raise the score or open cards in order to increase credit. Those new to managing credit should not open a lot of new accounts too quickly because this act will lower the average account age and could make the individual appear as a credit risk. Being considered a risk is worse than the alternative of having little credit information.

Paying bills on time in order to avoid delinquencies or a collections situation is a good way to positively impact a credit report. Other tips for raising your credit score include maintaining low credit card balances and avoiding the act of shifting debt. In addition, exercising good judgment when opening and closing credit card accounts will have a positive impact on the credit score.

Do you need a home, car or other type of loan but have poor credit? Well, it is possible to get an Adverse Credit Loan You can also find out how to get poor credit credit cards to give you a line of credit and improve your credit score.