Improving your credit rating
Buying a house can be a complicated affair, but it becomes a nightmare if you have bad credit. For a while, there were lending institutions that would lend to just about anyone, but since the housing market is on a down-swing due to a large number of foreclosures, this might be something of the past. Anyone who wants to buy a home should make sure they do everything they can towards improving credit rating so that they may have the best change of getting a great interest rate on their home loan.
There are many ways to go about improving credit rating, and the best way is to pay off old debts that are hanging over your head. You can start with the small ones, and then work out something with the larger debts. You might try to send payments each month. The company will be asking you for the whole amount, but you can tell them that a payment is the best you can do. They may not seem happy about it, but if that is all you can do, there is nothing they can do about it. This will help our rating move up, but won’t get you out of the woods.
While paying things off towards improving credit rating, remember that you have to keep an eye on your credit score to be sure these debts are being marked as paid. This might take a bit, so don’t get upset if they aren’t marked as such right away. If something is paid and a few months go by with no update, then you should take action to be sure the reports are updated and correct. Also remember that something marked as paid will look better than something that was settle for a lesser amount. Don’t settle unless you think you have to do so, or advised that this is the way to go for you.
As you try to go about improving credit rating, make sure you aren’t doing damage by using credit cards to pay off the debt. Things you have not paid for are not the only things that look bad on a credit rating. If you have good debt, but too much of it, that can go against you as well. Improving credit rating with good debt such as loans that are up to date, but they should not be so much that it looks like you are struggling to pay your bills each month. Strike a fair balance between paying off your old debts and making sure you aren’t getting any new ones.