Credit Monitoring Services
One of the best things that you as a buyer can do to prepare for the process of purchasing a home is to get a credit report before getting pre-approved for your loan. This will allow you to determine what accounts you have open, if they are being used, and if there are any indiscretions with your credit that may prevent or put a hindrance on your home buying process. At this point you should either dispute or correct the indiscretions to better your credit report and score. If you have any account open that has a balance higher than 30% of the limit, you should try and pay those balances down. Always keep your account balances below 30% of the account limit because it shows that you’re not living off your credit, but that your are financially responsible. If you have several accounts open that don’t have balances on them, you should use them to display responsible use of your credit, but remember, keep those balances hovering around 30% of the limit.
So, what should you do if there are open accounts on your credit report that you haven’t used in a long time? It’s not a good idea to close out those accounts. Why? Because chances are that the companies that those accounts are with have been reporting good scores to your credit report because there is no balance. What you should do instead is to use those accounts that are open, but don’t go above 30% of that account’s limit.
The following links are to the three companies from which you can obtain an annual credit report for free.
Equal Housing Opportunity. Each Office Is Independently Owned and Operated.