What is the fastest way to improve your credit score?

My husband and I are looking to buy a house soon and I want to get the best credit score possible for lenders to approve us. What should I do? Get more credit cards or bring the ones I have to a zero balance? What else?

Public Comments

1. whatever u have pay them off and keep paying your bills off each month and 3 months to 6 your score should go up
2. Your best bet is to meet with a lender and discuss this with them. Generally you want at least 3 open trade lines with no more than a 25 % balance on each. If you have any collections pay those. Do not close any credit lines and Do not apply for more credit unless advised to do so by a lender. Inquiries will affect your score. Just keep everything paid down but still used. Best bet is to talk to a reputable lender as they will work with you based on your specific goals and how to get you there.
3. Start paying your bills on time. No shortcuts, contrary to popular opinon.
4. I definately would NOT get more credit cards! Many lenders use your debt to income ratio as well as credit score when determining your loan amount and if you get more credit, you will lower your ratio. It's what you have AVAILABLE to charge, not necessarily your balance that you owe. For example, if you have 2 credit cards with a $500 limit on them, you have $1000 debt you could incur. Even if you don't currently owe on them! Banks will look at that. The best thing to do would be to close some credit card accounts that you don't need and pay down as much of the debt as possible. You also want to make sure that your payments are on time and above the minimum if possible. And you should try and have some money to put down on the house and pay your own closing costs.
5. My advice to you would be to through a program called NACA ( naca.com)they do character lending not credit lending i am going through this program and it is GREAT!!! i never thought that i would ever be abled to buy a home until i was introduced to the workshop please please check it out i hope that they are in your area good luck i would love to know how things go !
6. Don't open more credit cards, but bring your balances on your current ones to zero. As long as you Fico score is above 620, you will be just fine.
7. It greatly depends on your specific situation. There are many factors that influence your FICO credit score. The most important are that you have a long history (2-5 years or more) of a good mix of different types of credit. Credit cards are only one kind (revolving credit). There's also installment loans (cars, personal loans, student loans), real estate loans (houses, vacation properities, land) and sometimes utility credit (cable, electric, phone, etc.). Other than having a good mix of different kinds of loans, is the amount of credit you've been entrusted with. Higher credit limits (>$5K) imply a better relationship with lenders, and thus may improve your score. Also, its important that while you may have all these other factors to improve your score, you need to keep your balances on revolving (credit card) debt lower than 35% of the total credit available to be regarded as not overextended. Anything higher will negatively impact your score. The number of inquiries on your report, and how recently they were made, is also a factor. Generally having fewer than 5 inquiries in a 6 month to 2 year period doesn't really effect your score much, perhaps less than 25 FICO points. Having 20 inquiries in a 2 year period is a strong negative, perhaps as much as 100 FICO points or more. Other credit-like things can negatively effect your report. Examples are Court Judgements against you, Tax Liens, Collection Accounts and various Fines. Finally, depending upon all of these factors, it may or may not make since to open new lines of credit. It's generally not a good thing to do when you're trying to buy a home, but if you have low limits on existing credit lines or not many lines of credit of a certain type open yet, it may be possible to improve your FICO by taking out a new loan with a more generous limit or of a specific type that you don't have yet.
8. Repair credit score tips: 1 The first step you need to take to repair your credit score is to get your credit reports from all three of the major credit reporting agencies: Equifax, TransUnion, and Experian. You want all three because the information provided is not necessarily the same on all three. In fact, you might find something reported to just one that is not reported on the other two. Compare the three reports and look for any errors. There just might be a mistake on there that is dragging your credit score down. If this is the case, write to the credit reporting agency immediately to discuss the error. The easiest way to do this is to visit the agency's website and report the error through their online form. 2 Get credit only when you need it. Don't take out lines of credit just because you can or "just in case." 3 The most important thing, however, that you can do to repair credit score is to pay your bills on time. Each time you pay a creditor more than 30 days late, it is reported to the credit bureaus. This, of course, will only lower your score. Paying your bills on time can help you to get your credit score up where it needs to be. http://www.squidoo.com/repair-credit-score/ http://www.squidoo.com/raising-credit-score-now/