By: Arthur Cooper
Submitted: 2011-05-20 09:08:58 | Word Count: 664
Your credit rating is one of the most important things that will be used to evaluate you. Regardless of what you do for a living or how much income you earn every year, your credit rating will be what many banks and lenders use to determine if you are worth the risk of loaning you money. Whenever you apply for a mortgage, car loan or other line of credit, the first thing that the lender will be interested in is your credit score. This score helps to qualify you for a loan, and more importantly, a certain interest rate. If you have a good credit score, you will qualify for a loan or mortgage with a low interest rate. A lower interest rate will save you money over the life of the loan. A high interest loan is usually reserved for people with fair to poor credit. Higher interest rates can increase the amount of time it takes for you to repay the loan and the amount of money that it will cost you beyond the interest payment.
Before you decide to apply for a loan, you need to perform a self-evaluation of your finances, especially your credit. You should investigate your credit rating and history periodically by taking a look at your credit report. A credit report can be produced to you by one of the major credit reporting agencies. Each year, you are eligible to receive a free credit report from each of these agencies. These reports contain the information that lenders and creditors will use to determine if you are a good candidate for a loan. If your credit report is favorable, you should have no problem with securing a mortgage or a loan.
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What makes your credit report favorable? Your credit report is comprised of many things that are combined to determine your overall credit rating or score. There are a number of factors that are used to come up with a credit rating. A standard credit report will list all of your credit history. This includes open and closed credit accounts, payment history, credit account dates, collections, charge offs, bankruptcies and liens. All of these items tell a story about how you handle credit and debt. Having a 30 percent debt to income ratio is also important for having favorable credit.
To clear up your credit report of any remark that is not positive, there are a few things you can do.
Look at your credit report.
Find, report and dispute any inaccuracies or errors.
Pay off your debt in a timely fashion.
Use your credit less and more wisely.
Write a letter to the credit reporting agency or creditor.
If you want to dispute something on your credit report that is false or that should not be there after seven years, you can write a letter to the credit reporting agencies. To do so, you can use a template provided by CreditElves when you visit crediteleves.com. Here you can find sample letter templates that will help you to communicate in a direct, concise and professional way. Trough these letters you can request that changes be made to your credit report.
