Ways to Improve Your Credit Score

If you are cleaning up your credit report you realize how important your score is. This three digit number will directly impact your quality of life.

You will be judged by employers and lenders on this number. It can prevent you from being approved for credit and worse yet being hired for a job.

Many lenders will look at nothing else but your credit score when you apply for new credit. They rarely care as to the reason why a negative mark is on your credit.

There are two parts to credit repair that you should concentrate on.

1. Removing derogatory items from your report.

Negative marks cause the most damage to your score. However you can remove these items without waiting the full 7 years.

The Fair Credit Reporting Act allows you to dispute any negative listing on your credit report. When you file a dispute you are telling the bureaus that this mark is inaccurate or invalid.

In order to file a dispute a dispute letter must be mailed to the credit bureaus. In this letter you need to include an explanation as to why the mark is incorrect. Frequently reasons are; not my account, account paid before sent to collections, item out of date. When the bureaus receive your letter they will investigate the mark.

If the mark can not be verified then the credit bureau must remove it from your report. It has been found that once a listing is investigated it is often removed, regardless of its accuracy.

2. Build positive credit

This is a more difficult aspect. This is because when you have a low credit score it is hard to be approved for new credit lines.

However you need to have a credit line to build positive credit. This will have the most impact if it is an unsecured credit card, even with outrageous interest rates.

With this card you should try to keep the balance at around 10% of the credit limit. This will help your score because it shows you have available credit that is not being used; the bureaus call this your ratio of credit to debt.

In addition making on time monthly payments will create a positive payment history. Without building positive credit it will be hard to improve your score even if you remove all the negative marks.

In sum you can repair your low credit score. It may make sense to wait and remove some of the derogatory items before you apply for new credit. However both these aspects need to be used to get to a 700 credit score.