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Top 5 Ways to Improve your Credit
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- Don’t open any new creditor accounts. If you already have enough credit cards etc…please don’t open or take out any new loans. A new loan will report on your credit score as an R0 and will be considered “too new to rate” and will take big points bite off your credit score.
- Pay everything on time. If you haven’t been paying stuff on time, start NOW. You don’t have to pay off the whole balance, but do make a little more than the minimum payment required.
- Keep balances LOW versus your available limits…as low as possible. Let’s say you have a VISA with a 10,000 limit…please try to keep that limit below 7000.00 and do this with all your revolving credit accounts. It’s better to spread the debt over different accounts than to accumulate it all on one credit card. And being over your limit takes a big hit on your credit score.
- Don’t close any old credit accounts…the longer you have had a good account open, the better. Even if you don’t use that student Visa with the 500.00 credit limit…if you’ve had that card for the past 10 years…GREAT! Close it after the mortgage!
- If you do not have any credit…or have had credit issues in the past and have NO CURRENT credit…open an RRSP loan. Banks won’t do a credit cheque on an RRSP loan for 2000.00 or less and it’s an instant approval. These loans will report to the credit bureau and will boost your score faster than a secured credit card would…plus think of the tax savings, take some of those tax savings and put it down on your loan. But, if you have a long term plan in mind…don’t pay off that loan too quickly! It should be reporting to the credit bureau for at least 1 to 2 years. Then, once you have had this reporting for 6 months, you can then apply for an unsecured VISA or MC as your second piece of credit on the way to building your credit worthiness for a mortgage or other major loan.
