How to Improve Your FICO

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Having a good FICO credit score could mean increased options for consumers when they need an auto or a mortgage. There are companies that work with consumers to improve FICO scores, however, there are many things that can be done easily on your own. There are avenues to take and steps to follow to improve your FICO, and some of them are listed below.

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Instructions

Difficulty: Moderate

Step1

Keep a good steady payment history. Pay your bills on time or at least within 30 days so that they do not get reported as late. While paying off collections and judgments will slightly improve your FICO, they will remain in the calculation for around 7 years. Luckily, they are time based, which means that the older information is less contributing to the FICO score.

Step2

Regulate your accounts and the amounts owed. The best and fastest thing that can raise a FICO is to have many accounts with small balances, instead of a few maxed out accounts. Figure your account utilization by taking the balance and dividing it by the credit limit. This will give you the percentage of utilization. It is recommended to keep it lower than 10 percent for each account.

Step3

Establish a longer history on your accounts. Maintaining open accounts with creditors for a long period of time is better for your FICO than ones with a shorter history. This is more difficult if you are just establishing a credit history, but you will quickly create a history if you don't pay them off. The long-standing accounts should stay open and be paid on time to improve your FICO.

Step4

Apply for credit only when you know that you will be approved. Unnecessary pulls of your credit will create inquiries on your report which will lower the FICO scores. If you have a small credit file already, try to refrain from having too many inquiries for credit, because it will hurt those FICO scores more than larger and established credit files. If you have to apply for credit, there is a rule that will list all inquiries within a period of 14 days as only one inquiry.

Step5

Even out your credit usage. The amount of different accounts can help to improve your FICO, as long as you aren't overextended. The mix of credit counts for 10 percent of the Fair Isaac score calculation. Try to use many different kinds of credit evenly and that will help increase your credit scores.