what are points in your credit score and how do you increase them?

Answer 1

FICO points are a summary of your credit behaviors. The higher the score the lower the risk you pose to potential creditors. You increase your points in a lot of ways, but the easiest ways are 1) Pay all your bills on time 2) Pay more than the minimum payment on your credit cards every month 3) Have a lot of unused, available credit (pay down your debt and don't max out your cards). 4) Pay off any old debts or black marks on your credit report and don't let anything else go into collection.

If you don't have any credit right now, you can apply for store cards to start building a history. The trick is you have to use the cards and you have to carry a small balance month to month (pay more than the minimum but don't pay it off). Once you have a decent history you can apply for a low interest Visa or something. Just remember, pay more than the minimum, don't get anywhere close to your limit and shop around for a good interest rate (but read the terms of that rate closely - they can spike for things like cash advances or balance transfers).

High scores are developed over time, so if you're careful and diligent you'll be fine!

Here is a good article that talks about FICO scores - it will give you a lot more detail than I can here: http://www.suzeorman.com/igsbase/igstemplate.cfm?SRC=MD012&SRCN=aoedetails&GnavID=20&SnavID=20&TnavID=&AreasofExpertiseID=20

Answer 2

Your credit score is made up of the following;

1. Payment history 35%
2. Time in bureau 15%
3. Type of credit used 10%
4. New credit 10%
5. Debt to credit ratio 30%

As you can see, 1,2&5 are the most important as far as score is concerned.

The best way to achieve a great score and a great profile is to have 3 revolving accounts (credit cards) and 2-installment accounts (cars, boats, homes, furnature or personal loans) all with good long pay history's.

Be sure to keep your credit card accounts below 30% of your credit limit every month and always pay before the due dates.

Obviously do not have any collections, bankruptcy's, foreclosures, tax liens, judgments or lawsuits on your report.

Answer 3

In the United States, a credit score is a number typically between 300 and 850, based on a statistical analysis of a person's credit files, to represent the creditworthiness of that person, which is the likelihood that the person will pay his or her bills. A credit score is primarily based on credit report information, typically from the three major credit bureaus.

Lenders, such as banks and credit card companies, use credit scores to evaluate the potential risk posed by lending money to consumers and to mitigate losses due to bad debt. Lenders use credit scores to determine who qualifies for a loan, at what interest rate, and what credit limits. The use of credit or identity scoring prior to authorizing access or granting credit is an implementation of a trusted system. While the most widely known score in the United States is FICO (which is most widely used in the mortgage industry), there are many others, such as NextGen, VantageScore and the CE Score.

Answer 4

The points are actually your score. There are three different credit bureaus and you will have three different scores. (they don't share information with one another and their scoring systems vary). The one thing that is universal about them all is that the higher your score, the more likely you will be approved for a loan. You will also qualify for lower interest rates, less fees, etc.
The only two ways that you can raise your credit score are 1) pay your bills on time and 2) pay down (or pay off) your debt.
As the first poster said raising your credit score can be time consuming...you will not see any results immediately b/c it just doesn't work like that. But over time, they will go up eventually.

Answer 5

Credit scoring firms such as Fair Issac Company or (FICO) use fairly sophisticated econometric techniques to estimate your credit worthiness. The output from the models is expressed as a number between 350 and 850- these are the points. The higher the score, the more credit worthy you appear.

You increase your score by prudently managing your credit. Pay your loans on time, don't over extend yourself with too many loans, don't max out your credit cards, keep accounts open and in good standing for long periods of time, etc.

Answer 6

Your points or FICO score is a relative assessment of how likely you are to payback a loan. Here are a few steps in raising your score, this does take time
1. Pay your bills on time
2. Reduce your credit card debt to less than 30% of the limit of your cards
3. Do not apply for any more loans or credit cards each time you do your score lowers
4. If you have cards that are paid off do not close the accounts this will lower you credit to debt ratio

Answer 7

there are a few way to bring your score up 1 pay off old bills that are messing it up or 2 keep your current bills from going to collections. Unfortunately almost everything and everyone now days determine your wealth,social status and if your gonna be a good renter by that number witch really sucks because like me i have had credit problems when i was younger granted I'm only 26 now but a lot of places wont even look at me because my scores are bad hope this helps.

Answer 8

This is a very common question that is asked quite often. There are many different factors that will impact your credit score, good or bad. One such factor, that is probably the most obvious, is making all of your payments for all of your bills on time. This has the single biggest impact on credit scoring of all other single factors. Payment history accounts for roughly 35% of your total credit score. If you do have derogatory credit or late payments in your credit profile, the more recent the late payments are, the more negative the impact will be on your credit score

Answer 9

Raising your credit score is fairly simple, just time consuming.

The ONLY way to raise your score is to pay on a loan, credit card on time, every time. Some folks with so-so credit actually take out a small loan from their bank and deposit it directly into a checking account meant to pay the loan back.

Answer 10

Maybe you can try below website to get the information you need. It's about credit score and how you can improve it articles for your second opinion.