Did you know?

I promise I am done with the boring part of FICO scores.  But you really do need to know about how they are generated.  If you don't, you are only doing yourself a disservice.  FICO scores and your credit report are part of what decides whether you qualify for a mortgage, loans, credit cards and sometimes even if you can rent from someone.  If you have a ton of credit but aren't taking care of your credit that looks bad.  If you have no credit that also can look bad.  Knowing and understanding why will help you to understand why you may or may not qualify for credit on any given day.
With that said, if you haven't pulled a copy of your credit report in the past year then you need to.  To do this go to  www.annualcreditreport.com.  
You will receive a copy of your credit report from each agency for free - you are entitled to 1 per year.  Check it over.  Make sure your information is correct.  Make sure that you do not have any inquiries on your report that you yourself didn't make or apply for.  Make sure all credit lines are yours and that you are not listed as an authorized user or that you are not listed joint on something that you are not supposed to be.  Make sure that all the payment information is correct and that address and social security numbers are correct.  If you find any errors you will need to dispute them and I will get into that in a later blog post as that is a long and drawn out process that can sometimes take years.
If you do not find anything erroneous with your credit report and everything looks good then review it and see if there are any credit lines that you should close out or if there's been any credit closures in the past year or so.  Also look to see when the last time you applied for credit was and make sure that no one has pulled your credit without your authorization.  If you have more than 5 inquiries in a 6 month period that is a red flag for creditors.  If you went through an auto dealership or a recent mortgage refinance be aware that they often go through more than one bank or lender when going through the process so not only will you have an inquiry from the dealership itself but you will also have one from each bank/credit union/mortgage lender who handled your application, as it is a necessary step for them to take to ensure they are not getting false information (which is also something that happens at times).
If you have any questions about how to read your credit report please let me know - I'll be happy to look it over with you - we can do it via Zoom, through Google Hangouts or some other private screen sharing way.  This was something I did a lot of when I worked at my last job, before I became a loan officer and I love helping people to see how they can read and interpret their credit report information and make it work for them!