Friday, June 6, 2008

Estimate Your Credit Score

You are no doubt curious as to knowing how your credit score is calculated.


The process is long and each of the three major companies in the United States will participate in reporting credit scores and histories with a different method. This is why your credit score is going to be a little bit different from one to the next. There are some factors that you can take into consideration if you want to estimate your credit score on your own.

How To Build Your Credit Score

The first thing is if you have not ever owned a credit card or had any type of bill in your name or if you have borrowed money of any kind, your credit score is going to be zero. Even though this is not considered to be bad credit, it is hard to even get a loan with no credit as it is with bad credit. There are some companies that may be willing to take a chance on someone with no credit but it is much better to build up your credit little by little as you go by having cards in your name and living a comfortable and stable life within your means of income.

Approximate Values Of What Counts How Much
Your credit history is going to make up about 35% of your total credit score and it is very important. The bills that are not paid or if you have debts that have defaulted you will hurt your credit score for 7 to 10 years before they are all erased. You need to think about this and all of the bad choices that you make today can hurt your credit in the future. If you are repaying these debts now, chances are they will still show up on your credit report now as bills that were paid late.

There is 15% that is going to be the length of your credit history. It is a good idea to start building credit as soon as you can. Your score is will improve as time goes on as long as you are maintaining a bank account. The information like length of employment or residence so that it can be classified in this section so if you have a regular and stable life, you will have a better score than someone else that moves around all the time. Which can be quite illogical in a market where employees must be mobile and willing to move which companies that might also want them sent to other sectors of the country...

Then 30% of your score will depend on what you are currently owing to creditors. Even if you are not late on paying your bills, if you have many loans out at one time, it may be possible that you are denied to have another. Therefore it is important to only take out the loans you really need and to repay them on time or early if you can. If you pay off your loans early, you will not only see your credit score rise, you will also save money on paying interest. This will show up on your credit history. You will also want to try and keep your money in one place if possible.

10% of your credit score is going to be based on new accounts. They will look at how many different types of loans you have applied for and how many you have open now. When you are opening and closing accounts too fast is not a recommendation.

Use Common Sense
You need to use your common sense. Know what your credit score is, and how it is calculated is going to help you find mistakes on it - or ways to improve your score. This may help you and your credit score in the future. You are able to see a free copy of your credit report annually for free so you should review this as well as get your credit score to be sure that you are being treated fairly.

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