MR Personal Finance – together to the bright future

Find the Perfect Mortgage Rate by Increasing Your Credit Rating

Posted on February 5, 2021February 5, 2021 by MKadmin

Buying a house can be the biggest investment you can make in your life.

Why pay sky-high interest rates when having a good credit score can help you qualify for lower interest rates?

Follow these tips to having a smart mortgage and a great credit score.

Seriously think about all the effects that having a mortgage will entail.

Before applying for a loan, you should consider how much you’ll be able to afford on a monthly basis.

Even if you could get approved for a large loan online, it may not be a smart move to take on a huge monthly loan payment.

You have to take homeowner’s insurance, property taxes, and other fees associated with buying a house into consideration.

Do your research.

Find the lowest mortgage rate possible by visiting local banks and credit unions.

You should do your research in a relatively short time period because multiple inquiries to your credit record can have a negative effect on your credit score.

At this point, you also be able to determine if an adjustable or fixed mortgage rate is right for you.

Re-evaluate your monthly bills.

When considering a mortgage, take a look at your other monthly payments.

Will it look like you’ll have trouble paying your mortgage?

At this point, pay down any credit card balances you may have.

And don’t finance anything else (like furniture or a computer) that will result in more monthly payments.

Your debt-to-income ratio is something that creditors look at when determining an interest rate for you.

Check your credit score.

Obtain a copy of your credit record and check it over to make sure there isn’t any fraudulent or inaccurate information on it. In general, you should look at your credit record every three months.

Any mistakes can impact whether or not you get approved for a mortgage. The three credit bureaus, Equifax, TransUnion, and Experian, will issue you a credit score between 300 and 850.

Anything above 680 is considered to be a “fair” credit rating and will generally allow you to get approved for many different types of loans.

However, the higher your credit score, the lower the interest rates will be applied to your loans, which means you’ll have a lower monthly payment.

That is why it literally pays to make timely monthly payments every month. Never having a late payment reflects positively on your credit record.…

Improve Your Credit Rating Through Credit Cards

Posted on December 3, 2020 by MKadmin

The fact that you have a bad credit history doesn’t necessarily mean that you can’t get a credit card.

In actual fact, there is a class of credit cards known as bad credit cards, which are exactly meant for people in that circumstance, and through which you actually get a chance to improve your credit rating.

These bad credit cards come in two main varieties, namely secured and unsecured bad credit cards.

The difference between the two is in the down payment requirements, in that to get a secured bad credit card you have to part with a down payment (deposit) whereas to get the unsecured variety you are not required to part with such a deposit.

Obviously, the unsecured bad credit cards are riskier to the issuers – and are consequently charged a higher interest rate than the secured bad credit cards, which are in turn charged a higher interest rate than the ‘good’ credit cards.

Of course, to qualify for the ‘good’ credit cards, you would need to improve your credit ratings – and wise use of the bad credit cards available to you is one of the best strategies you can use to improve your credit ratings.

By submitting your bad credit card payments on time and maintaining low balances on the card, you can use the bad credit card you have to improve your overall credit rating.

Timely submission of credit card payments and maintenance of low credit card balances both show that you are a creditworthy borrower.

For instance, in addition to saving you from the penalty of late fees, submitting your credit card payments on time shows that you have a tendency to pay your debts as they fall due, which is one of the hallmarks of creditworthiness, and which can give your credit rating a big boost.

Maintaining low balances on your credit cards on the other hand shows that you can use credit responsibly, that is, you don’t abuse the credit facilities extended to you. This can be another big boost to your overall credit rating.

And while working to improve your credit ratings, you should minimize your credit inquiries (which are made to the credit bureaus by the potential lenders you approach).

Minimizing credit inquiries further demonstrates responsible use of credit (that is, you don’t just go for credit because it is available) and raises your creditworthiness even higher, which is reflected in your credit rating.…

A Simple Guide to a Credit Score

Posted on November 3, 2020December 3, 2020 by MKadmin

In the United States, there are three different credit bureaus, which are Equifax, Transunion, and Experian. Each of the bureaus tries to maintain an accurate picture of your creditworthiness.

If you’ve ever wondered what makes up your credit score, and want to know what you can do to improve it so that the next time you are interested in picking up any sort of loan so that you get terms that more are favorable to you, keep reading!

If you were considering lending money to someone, and you didn’t know anything about the person, what sort of information about them would you want to know?

You probably would want to know how much they have borrowed now so that you aren’t giving a drunk a drink and enabling someone to borrow too much money.

You would also probably want to know if they have paid their bills in the past and that they paid on time. You’ll want this history to go back quite a bit of time to make sure there aren’t any disturbing trends in their financial life.

You might also want to know if this person has applied for credit recently, because this might indicate that they want to borrow a whole bunch of money at once, without all of the lenders knowing about each other.

When you borrow money, banks want to know this information about you, and they do this by getting your credit score through the major credit bureaus.

Your credit score is made up of all of these things, based on a complex proprietary formula that is kept from the public. We do know that 35% of your FICO credit score is based on your history of making payments.

This includes how many times you’ve been late if you’ve not paid, and how long ago the mistakes were made. 30% of your credit score is how much money you’ve currently borrowed. Another 10% of your credit score comes from your available credit.

If you have tens of thousands of dollars that you could borrow at will through a credit card, banks won’t like this because your financial situation could become much direr at any moment. Another 15% of your credit score is based on the length of your credit history.

If you have had a long history of being on time than someone else, your credit score will be better. 10% are based on the number of credit inquiries in the last year, and another 10% is based on the types of credit that you have.

So what can you do to improve your credit score? There’s a lot of discussion as to what secret steps you can to make your credit score better, but you can’t go wrong with paying off debt and paying your bills on time.…

Is Your Credit Score Safe?

Posted on October 16, 2020 by MKadmin

I pay a lot of my bills online, as I am sure a lot of you do. You may have noticed my recent complaint about utility bills. Electricity more specifically. Today though I am talking about any bill that you pay online.

I will tell you what I have discovered, then you can try it for yourself. Equifax, the credit reporting agency we all know and love so dearly, is expanding their services. Yes they have branched out into what they are calling “Payment Services.” How do I know? Well, let me tell you.

I had made arrangements with the electric company to make their payment on the 28th of December, after Christmas you know. It would be late, but they knew it was coming.

When I went online, to make this late payment, same site I have used for years, I couldn’t get past the payment portal. I could log on, but my computer kept telling me it didn’t want me to go (I have Firefox, love it by the way), anyway it said it was trying to direct me to a third party site.

Well I put my little mouse down there on the the little security padlock icon. It said Equifax. Yes Equifax the credit reporting agency. I did call and question about that , but the power company representative did not have a clue.

Next I made a credit card payment online, same deal, have used the site and card for a long time. Same deal, could get logged in at the start screen, but when trying to go to make the payment the little circle spun and spun, until Firefox again warned me it was trying to direct me to a third party site. I knew I had till Six PM before the payment was late. Sure enough, little security icon says Equifax.

The story does not end there. Now that there is no payment due yet, I have logged on to both accounts, and can smoothly maneuver to the payment page. Furthermore, search online, and there is information regarding Equifax entering the payment services.

Now If they are gonna do something like that, don’t you think they would make it work smooth enough that we did not know? Since I didn’t trust to put my bank information through the third party site, I ended up paying $10.00 to pay by phone. The rep was like, “It’s not late, why don’t you just pay it online, I see here on your records you always pay on time online.” Needless to say, she did not believe me about the Equifax either.

Be warned though, even if you have made a payment arrangement, Equifax has found a way to get every little late payment on their records.

Peace Out.…