A good credit score is always important, especially when you’re anticipating buying a house, car or other large purchase that requires financing. It’s even more important to have a good credit score now with the credit crunch we are currently going through. Banks are tightening lending due to the rising number of foreclosures and delinquencies which means they are getting pickier about who they lend money to. To make sure you continue to qualify for financing – and at the best rates possible – you must have good credit.
So, what is considered a good credit score? According to Fair Isaac, also known as FICO, a credit score above 700 is considered good, a score above 750 is considered great, and anything over 800 is considered excellent. FICO scores can range from 300 to 850. The national average is approximately 680 and only 13% of people have a score above 800.
A good credit score is important because it determines what interest rate you will get when you apply for a loan, or if you even qualify for that loan. In this credit crunch, many people that would have qualified for a mortgage or car loan a few years ago are no longer qualifying. For example, you used to be able to qualify for a mortgage with a score of 500, now some mortgage lenders are requiring a score of 620 or higher to even qualify for a mortgage loan. GMAC recently announced that you will need a score of 700 or higher to qualify for an auto loan.
Even if you do qualify for a loan, you may be paying a higher interest rate. Credit card companies are taking a closer look at your payment history and how much debt you have outstanding when determining whether to extend credit and at what rates. People who have the highest credit scores will get the lowest interest rates and the best terms. What interest rate you qualify for determines how much total you will pay for a loan.
To give you an example of how a higher score can save you money, let’s look at someone applying for a 30-year fixed mortgage of $300,000. Someone with a score of 680 would pay 6.586% or $1,913 per month. Someone with a score of 720 would pay 6.302% or $1,857 per month, while someone with 760 or higher would only pay 6.08% or $1,814 per month. So a lower credit score could cost you over $1,000 per year.
You can reduce the impact of the credit crunch by taking steps to improve your credit score, or by keeping it in good shape if you have a good score already. The biggest factors that make up your score include your payment history, how much debt you’re carrying and how long your credit history is. You can improve your credit by paying your bills on time, keeping your credit card balances low, and by avoiding applying for new credit.
By: Krissi Ann
Posts Tagged ‘Interest Rates’
A Good Credit Score is More Important Than Ever
January 19th, 2010Posted in Article
Tags: Auto Loan Banks Buying A House Car Loan Credit Card Companies Credit Crunch Credit Scores Delinquencies Fair Isaac Fico Score Fico Scores Foreclosures Gmac Interest Rate Interest Rates Mortgage Lenders Mortgage Loan Payment History Taking A Closer Look What Is Considered A Good Credit Score
Getting Finance for College even with Bad Credit
December 30th, 2009
Student loans are meant for helping students to pay for tuition and other everyday expenditures. Student loan payment is not requested till you’ve completed college and interest rates are also much lower than regular loans. As a result when paying time comes, monthly payments will be smaller and there will be flexible repayment programs.
In order to request a student loan you will have to consider many things. If you want to calculate the amount of money you will request, you should consider what your everyday expenditures are and whether you will be working or not. Don’t be too optimistic; always be prepared for the unexpected. It is better to request a slightly larger loan amount and have some extra cash for an emergency than being short of cash and having to request another loan with the risk of being declined.
Get Ready for applying
Regarding your everyday expenditures you must undertake the making of a budget, where you will include all the monthly installments you’re currently paying and any future expenses you may expect. After summing up, the result will be your monthly expenditures. You’ll have to multiply this sum for the number of months you’ll stay at college and add any other expenses that you’ve left out of the budget.
Whether you will be working or not is an important issue and will determine the loan amount you’ll be requesting since a source of income, no matter how small, is very different than no source at all. Moreover, if you can destine some of your income towards the loan you will be able to repay it sooner and save thousands of dollars on interests.
Search Online for a Lender
Now that you’ve decided the loan amount you should fill the online applications that will be presented to you by numerous online companies you’ll easily find on the net. There are many online companies willing to offer you assistance in the process of finding and applying for a loan. Just search the net for student loan lenders and student loans comparisons. Request loan quotes and see which loan best suits your needs.
You may have your doubts, this is healthy, and you shouldn’t rush in and make a decision without considering your options. But if there are no other sources of finance at your hand, don’t hesitate, student loans are not as burdensome as other loans and are specially designed to protect those who are willing to study a career. You may think it’s a risky decision, but the highest risk that you may take and will compromise your future ability to succeed in life is not going to college.
By: Kate Ross
A Good Credit Report – The Key To Cheap Finance
December 26th, 2009
Is your credit report important? There are a lot of people who would not consider their credit rating as something too important to them in their life. There are others who, while recognising its importance, would not be overly concerned about the issue or understand the reasons for its importance. Well, to those people, they should at least be aware of some of the uses that are made of credit reports in the world in which we live.
Lenders
While it may seem obvious to state it, credit reports are predominantly concerned with assessing the risk involved in lending money to you. Lenders are obsessed with one thing, getting repaid, and their entire industry revolves around making this occur. Therefore, they have developed the credit score that will assess your likely hood of repaying them and this is then used to either approve or reject your application for credit. While this is the basic purpose, some more sophisticated lenders desire to get in on an ever larger share of the market and in order to lend to higher risk borrowers, they create different categories of loans which people with lower scores can qualify for. These loans will invariably have higher interest rates and other less favourable conditions and this will be the price you pay for having a lower credit rating.
Since loans are used to finance homes, education, cars, and most other large purchases in life, the inability to get access to credit, or only to be able to get it at less attractive terms and rates, is a substantially reason to care about your credit report and try to keep it in as good a condition as possible.
Credit reports are also used when you apply for renting or leasing accommodation. This is usually because the landlord wants to be fairly certain that you’ll be able to pay your rent as it falls due. So keeping your credit score healthy at this stage will pay off if you need to be approved for renting or leasing residential property.
There is also a trend among employer to start using credit ratings when assessing job applicants. The reasons they are making use of credit reports are of course different for every employer but there is a consensus that a healthy credit report and a good past record of meeting financial commitments is a good sign that the job applicant is someone reliable and worth employing. While it does seem slightly perverse that the very people that will need a job the most are precisely the ones that can be denied it but that’s the direction things are moving in.
By: Joseph Kenny