High Cost of A Low Credit Score!

Any time you apply for credit, the company you are applying at will normally pull a credit report and score from one or all three of the major Credit Bureaus.

This credit score will help the company judge the risk of loaning you the money. It doesn’t matter if it’s a car, washing machine, or home mortgage. Now each company may have it’s own system but a big part of the risk analysis is based on your credit score.

Most credit bureau scores used in the U.S. are produced from software developed by Fair Isaac and Company. FICO scores are provided to lenders by the major credit reporting agencies This system has gained more popularity in recent years and now each of the three main credit bureaus licenses Fair Isaac's system for generating credit scores.

FICO scores are the credit scores most lenders use to determine your credit risk. You have three FICO scores, one for each of the three credit bureaus: Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax. Each score is based on information the credit bureau keeps on file about you. As this information changes, your credit scores tend to change as well. Your 3 FICO scores affect both how much and what loan terms (interest rate, etc.) lenders may offer you.

FICO scores are based on 22 pieces of data collected by the three major credit bureaus, Equifax, Experian and TransUnion). The lowest possible score is 300, while the highest is 850.

Just to show you the impact, let’s use a home mortgage for an example. One of the major goals of most people is to own their own home so it’s one of the most common credit requests. It also dramatically shows the high cost of a low credit score.

Once you submit your credit application, the mortgage company will request a credit report and score from the three major Credit Bureaus. They are Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. Each one has it's own format and style but basically provide the same type of information.

And each Credit Bureau may contain different records on your credit and they don’t share information. So you may get up to a 100 point difference on your three scores. And to make things even more adventurous, not all creditors use all three Credit Bureaus. Large companies, like most mortgage and car companies use all three but smaller ones may only check one.

We’ll use the sample scores below as an example of what you might receive as a credit score from each of the Credit Bureaus.

Equifax Score – 680Experian Score - 630 TransUnion Score - 670

Now that we have your scores, here is an example of what a mortgage company might approve on a credit request based on your scores:

(this is just an example based on the interest rates that were available at writing – current rates may be different)

If your FICO® score is          Your interest rate is        ...and your monthly payment is

760 - 850                                   6.29%                              $1,336

700 - 759                                   6.51%                              $1,367

680 - 699                                   6.69%                              $1,392

660 - 679                                   6.9%                                $1,423

640 - 659                                   7.33%                              $1,486

620 - 639                                   7.88%                              $1,567

As you can see, if they use the lowest score, 630, or the highest score, 680, the difference in monthly payments can be a $175 per month (that’s $2100 per year). So 50 points can make a big difference.

Many of the negative items on your credit report can represent up to 20-25 points. So if you get 2-3 items removed, that can mean up to a 75 point increase in your credit score. That can make a huge impact on your credit cost.

So before you apply for credit, check your credit reports and see if you can remove any false or incorrect negative entries. if you have some negative entries on your credit report that you can have removed, you can see that the savings make it well worth the time and effort.

Don’t pay for something that you can get for FREE. Go to the Federal Trade Commission’s site here to get the full details of getting your free credit reports:

http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/credit/freereports.htm

Everyone should check his or her credit report each year. It’s now Free and won’t take much time as long as you stay on top of it. You can request one credit bureau at a time every 4 months and have a good idea of what’s been entered in the past 12 months.