Buyers Should Check Credit Scores Before they Even Begin to Shop

The shenanigans that credit card companies have pulled over the past year or so have wreaked havoc with credit scores.

The sad result is that even though a person has paid every bill on time, they may still have scores that aren't quite good enough to get them the best mortgage interest rates.

Not only have the credit card companies damaged many consumers' scores, even FICO admits that as many as 70% of all credit reports contain errors. Some are insignificant, but others can seriously damage your credit scores. Then add in identity theft, and unless you're keeping track you just can't tell what might be lurking on your credit report.

Usually there are ways to raise those scores. But... if your buyers wait until they're ready to make an offer on a home, it could be too late to make improvements.

There's been a lot of hype about getting your free credit report each year from the 3 major bureaus, and it's true that you can. But those free reports don't have scores. To get those you have to pay - and if you choose not to buy the scores they will email you repeatedly to tell you why you should.

Instead, you can get free credit reports and scores from sites like Credit Score Quick and not pay a dime. They will sign you up for credit monitoring (which is a good idea) but you aren't obligated to keep it. You can get your reports and then cancel with no further obligation.

With the exception of an Equifax offer, these are not official FICO scores, but they're darned close, and they'll alert you to problems that need to be solved in order to raise your credit scores.They even give specifics about why your scores aren't higher.

Credit Score Quick is my favorite one of these sites for a couple of reasons. One is that I write some of their articles. The other is that there are SO MANY articles posted there to help people with credit issues. You can learn how to raise your scores and how to build scores if you haven't yet established credit. You can get budgeting tips and learn about financial help for military families. You can learn about the changes in credit card laws and mortgage guidelines. And the list goes on...

This site is a wealth of information for anyone wants to save money and take good care of their credit. So go there and search around a little. Unless you've been diligently reading credit articles for the last many months, my bet is that you'll learn something new.