What Does Excellent Credit Look Like?

How come we're hearing so much about credit these days but what we're hearing is not helping? I mean you get a lot of tips you may not have heard before and applying them makes you feel good, but if you look at your credit without looking at a score, how can you tell if where you're at is where you need to be? Further, what if it works, but you only end up with few points or even worse your score goes up then right back down. For most people "Excellent Credit" would be a score above 700, but exactly what does your credit report need to look like?

Say you finally hear that a good score is above 700 and that's what you're shooting for. You find out your score is about a 610 and you start doing your homework to figure out how to get accounts removed, negotiate pay offs and get your accounts paid on time. Your goal is to move in your new home, refinance or buy a new car in about a year. You spend that whole year working your credit to do just that. At the end of the day all your bills have been paid on time for a year, you got those old accounts removed from your credit report and you paid off all those collections. A year latter you moved up a whole 60 points or you got your score over a 700 and either you're high enough for a decent loan or you've reached your goal. The lender pulls your score and offers you a loan. About six months latter you apply for a credit card or apply for a personal loan and you're either denied or you're told you're being offered a less desirable rate because of your score. What happened? My score was nearly 700 or above@#!$#%$#!#%$ . Without even looking at your score you can determine about where you would be based on what your credit looks like. Getting out of your situation long enough to get there is another story. Look for my "Life after Bad Credit" blog.

What does Excellent Credit look like though? First pull your credit report for free at www.annualcreditreport.com then, shoot for the following and I guarantee (not worth more than the paper it's written on, but I promise you this will work) your score will rise to the occasion:

1) 4-6 Accounts Total
2) 2-4 Should be Revolving Accounts
3) 1-2 Should be Financed
4) Open 24 months with 24 months of activity
5) Paid on time every month for 24 months
6) Keep balance on Credit Cards below 30%
7) No open collections with a balance

Now you will get well above 700 if you can avoid having any collections showing on your credit report at all. What if you have an account open 24 months and have 1 late payment, is all your hard work for not? What about the collection that was just paid off, how long will it be before you benefit from that? What if you have an emergency and have to use more than 30% of your credit limit or went over your credit limit? What if a collection got added to your credit report with no prior notice on an account that hasn't been paid on in 7 years? What happens if the Sheriff shows up at your door for a judgment on an account you had 10 years ago? How do you know if you have too many credit cards? What if you had student loans that went to collections, how do they affect your credit?

Well I gave you a list of what you need your credit report to look like but the path to get there is not always easy since life's issues sometimes get in the way. I can't give it all to you in one blog even though I'd like to. If you're stuck and traditional help is not helping, please don't hesitate to give us call. We will go over your credit report for all 3 major credit bureaus line by line. Then we help you develop a plan to get your credit to look like "Excellent Credit" by helping you get accounts removed that should legally be removed, negotiate a reasonable pay off and create a short term budget to get you based on your current financial situation. Finally, we prepare all your letters for you so you're not left to guess what you need to do next. Our objective is to help you improve your score by 15-40 points in 30-45 days and 40-100 points within 6 months and we have an 85% success rate.

For more information please contact us at 773-383-0849 or visit our website at www.sandcgroup.com