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One Way to Raise Credit Scores

By Joetta Fort

Real Estate Agent with The DiGiorgio Group

September 19, 2010 09:27 AM

Raise Credit Scores, buy a house in CO I received an email from the other day from Chris Thomas of The Mortgage Experts at America's Mortgage LLC, about one way to raise your credit score. A higher score makes a difference in how much you can borrow when you want to buy a house, and in what interest rate you will pay.

There are lots of other factors, of course. But I thought this would be one thing most people could do in the months before they're actually ready to buy, so they're not quite as busy once they getting started on the home buying adventure.

Here's what the email said:

When we run someone's credit through the software that tells us exactly what to do to raise their credit scores, the most common recommendation is to lower the percentage of the person's credit limit that is being used.

Here are the percentages that affect credit scores:

If the balance is more than 70% of your credit limit, it lowers your score the most.
If the balance is 50% - 70% of your credit limit, it lowers your score a bit less.
If the balance is 30% - 50% of your credit limit, it lowers your score even less.
If the balance is below 30%, it will improve your score the most.

These percentages apply to individual credit accounts and also to the total credit limit of all credit accounts. So if you pay off a credit card account, do not close the account. That will lower your total available credit limit and therefore lower your credit scores.

raise credit score buy a house

I wrote back and asked, "Do you some times recommend lowering a person's percentage by having that person raise the credit limits on credit cards?

And here's that answer.

Increasing the credit limit on credit cards will raise the scores. The only time this is not a good idea is if someone gets denied for an increase repeatedly. Then it will lower the scores slightly because there will be so many inquiries.

Many times, getting an additional card raises the score quite a bit. This is often the case when someone only has one or two revolving accounts (credit cards).

Chris has been very helpful in this matter, if you'd like to ask them some more questions I'm sure they would love to help you out.

Email him at cthomas@mtgsupportservices.com

Call him at 303-345-3683

You can read Chris's blog posts at: http://activerain.com/christhomas

(I have no relationship with and will receive no benefit from Chris Thomas or The Mortgage Experts as a result of this post or as a result of any readers contacting them. If you would like some assistance with other matters regarding finding and buying your own home, please feel free to contact me.)

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I write posts on real estate issues and local events in the Denver metro area, especially those *communities between Denver and Boulder, as a public service. My hope is to give people an idea of the 'flavor' of our community, in case they're new or moving to the Denver area.

I am a residential real estate agent, happily helping folks buy a house or sell a house in the beautiful and friendly *suburbs northwest of Denver.

*Arvada, Broomfield, Lafayette, Louisville, Superior, Westminster; also Thornton, Golden, Wheat Ridge, Northglen, Lakewood

Find Homes for Sale, no Matter Who Listed Them, at Dream House Hunting.