Checking The Pulse Of The Kansas City Real Estate Market

It’s often the last thing on a home buyer’s mind yet credit scores are a powerful aspect of buying a Kansas City home. I’ve seen borrowers with a 20% down payment and buying WELL below their means get turned down for a home loan because their credit scores stink… And if you think you can quickly fix issues with your credit, think again because I’ve never seen someone “fix” their credit score in just a couple of weeks time. It can take months to deal with errors and longer to deal with legitimate issues that have pushed a credit score down.

Being late on your monthly payments can kill a credit score and consider that credit scores are as much about a borrower’s responsibility as it is about their ability to make the payments.  A person who barely gets by but always makes their payments on time will surely have a better credit score than someone who makes twice as much but is often late with their payments. You can check out how your credit report is looking by getting a free, once-a-year, credit report check at  AnnualCreditScore.com. 

The formula for credit scores is more of an ancient Chinese secret than how Mr. Li got those shirts so clean in those 1970’s commercials, but the following are some frequent common denominators of people with 800 credit scores… 4 revolving accounts such as credit cards, 2 installment loans like a home loan or car loan, at least one active credit account that’s 10+ years old, having no revolving accounts that are more than 1/3 maxed out, not having a single late payment on any account the past 5 years and having less than 5 inquiries against your credit during the past year.

Posted by Jason Brown