What is a credit report? A credit report shows your financial history, as created by credit bureaus. If you’ve ever fallen into debt, filed bankruptcy,and/or lost your home in foreclosure, your credit report may look like a battlefield. No worries–you can improve it. And this guide shows you precisely how to do that.
1- Get Your Credit Report
How do you get your credit report? Simple. You can get it by going to the three major credit bureaus, who have websites at Equifax.com, Experian.com, and Transunion.com. This is where your credit score is created. You can expect your scores to reflect: your payment history, how much you owe, length of your credit history, types of credit used, and your new credit.
2-Improve Your Payment History
You can improve your credit score in a variety of ways. No matter how bad you think it is, there is always a solution to improving credit scores and rebuilding your life after bankruptcy, home foreclosure, or job loss. To improve your credit report, improve your payment history. This means paying bills on time, getting current on past due bills, contacting creditors if you think you’ll not be able to pay a bill on time, and if you run into trouble working with a non profit credit counselor (be thorough in researching them and making sure they’re legit).
3-Avoid Debts
One major problem people in debt face is high credit card balances. You want to keep these low. Why? They lower your scores, so keep them low and you can improve your score. Next, you want to avoid moving debt around; just pay it off. The more open balances you have the lower your score gets.
You just have to be logical when it comes to debts. Here again there is professional help, just as there is for home owners facing foreclosure or bankruptcy.
4-Time and Credit History
Time is on your side if you follow these tips, but it’s something you obviously cannot “rush.” However, what you can do is not opening multiple accounts in a short period. If you have little credit history, this could hurt you.
5-Managing Credit
There are many other ways your credit score can do now that you may be unaware of, such as searching for a single loan. If you search for a single loan, perhaps for a home, multiple queries can surprisingly hurt your credit score. Also, if you make many credit queries in quickly, that can sometimes lower your credit score. If you have to do either, do them in as short a window as possible.
6-Improve Credit, Avoid Debt, Delay Problems
There are many other ways you can improve your credit, but if you run into problems with debt on a regular basis, or if you are simply out of reach of paying back all your debt, you may want to consult with non-profit counselor. If things look bad, perhaps you fear a home foreclosure, you could contact a bankruptcy lawyer and see your options. Chapter 13 bankruptcy can be advantageous, including delaying any foreclosures for years. Chapter 7 bankruptcy can eliminate credit card debt. If you do want bankruptcy and a fresh start, hire a good bankruptcy lawyer, and when you’re done, work on rebuilding your credit with the above tips.
