How Can You Increase Your Score?

• Increasing your credit score takes time and discipline
• Credit Scores consider your credit history over several years, making it difficult to increase your credit score in the short run. Over the long term you can improve your credit-worthiness by:
• Paying your bills on time and in full. Late payments and collections can have a serious impact on your score.
• Do not apply for credit frequently. Having a large number of inquiries on your credit report can worsen your score.
• Reduce your credit-card balances. If you are "maxed" out on your credit cards, this will affect your credit score negatively.
• If you have limited credit, obtain additional credit. Not having sufficient credit can negatively impact your score.
• When you're planning a big purchase like a new car, home, or a dream vacation, it's important to know what your lenders know about your credit.
• How to Improve Your Credit Score
• Maxed Out Credit Cards Are Bad. Raise your credit line: Ask your credit card companies for a credit limit increase so that your maintain a lower credit utilization rate. But do not run your cards up to the limit.

• Don’t close a credit card account: If you are not using a certain credit card do not close it A low or zero balance on a card will improve your credit score. It can  actually hurt your credit score if you close the account
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Your Credit Bureau score is based on the following items:

• Payment History
• Public record and collection items
• Severity, frequency and recent occurrence of delinquencies
• Outstanding Debt
• Number of balances recently reported
• Average balance across all trade lines
• Relationship between total balances and total credit limits
• Credit History
• Age of oldest loans
• Number of new loans
• Pursuit of New Credit
• Number of inquiries and new account openings in the past year
• Amount of time since most recent inquiry
• Cash advances are often a sign that you are in financial trouble and can lower your score.
• Types of Credit in Use

Your score is based on all the credit-related data in your credit bureau report, not just negative data such as missed mortgage payments or bankruptcies.

Other factors may also considered by lenders.

Usually though, if your score is too low, you are automatically rejected regardless of other factors.

You can obtain your credit report free of charge from Equifax and Trans Union. You should monitor it twice a year for changes and to protect yourself from errors and identity theft

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