Mortgage Finance-3 Hot Tips To Avoid Lowering Your Fico Score

Building a good credit score is a long term process. As they say a journey of a thousand miles starts with the first step. Beware of quick fixes. There are none except for the quick fix of getting into your wallet by way of a scam and there are some out there. Here are three sure fire tips to avoid lowering your FICO score.

The MR BIG of things to avoid is:

1. MISSING A PAYMENT Sure you knew that. But missing a single payment can undue years of good solid work in a heartbeat-by 100 points or more. If you have a record of being late it won't hurt as much as having a perfect payment record sad to say. AND if you are a day late with some companies it doesn't matter-you are still late. They can be ruthless.

Close behind #1 is:

2.100% UTILIZATION OF AVAILABLE CREDIT Fair Isaac AND Company FICO is looking for a low credit utilization percentage-the lower the better. So if you are maxing out your cards look for your score to take a tumble. Consider asking for a higher credit limit and make darn sure you don't use it (like my ex wife did). This has the same effect of paying off your cards and lowering that percentage. Cool eh?

And last of the hot tips to avoid a lower FICO score is:

3.DON'T TOSS THOSE OLD CARDS I made this huge mistake myself thinking it would help. WRONG! Instead of tossing those old cards use them occasionally-every 4-6 months for small purchases and pay it off immediately. This will keep your account active vs. inactive- a huge difference to Mr. FICO.

Follow these three tips and you will help avoid having your FICO score in the tank.

Jack Krohn is a leading free lance writer on Home Equity and Mortgage issues with over 35 articles to his credit. He is also the #1 author of Home Security Articles in the country according to Ezine Articles.

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