5 Legit Ways to Boost Your Credit Score Fast

5 Legit Ways to Boost Your Credit Score Fast

Are you ready to purchase your first house, but your credit score doesn’t support your decision? A good credit score plays a critical role in the approval process for a mortgage. If you have a low credit score and want to buy in the near future, it’s time to get to work.

There are 5 proven ways to get your credit score improved quickly and they are 100% legit.

1. Pay Your Credit Balances Down

30% of your credit score comes from your credit utilization, which means how much debt you are using compared to how much you have available. You want to show that you are using your credit balances, but that you are not just growing the balance. Make charges on your card and right before the company reports to the credit bureaus, pay all but 1% of your balance off.

2. Pay Your Bills on Time

One of the fastest ways to improve your credit score is to get bring your bills current if you have overdue payments. If you have bills that are past due, but not past 30 days, get them paid quick. Most companies do not report late payments until they are 30 days past due. Catching up on your bills can help you see an improvement in your credit score in as little as one to two months.

3. New Accounts

Opening a new account can actually help improve your credit score. By obtaining a new account you show that you have additional credit available that you are not using. The lower the amount of your total credit limit that you are using, the better your score will be.

4. Join an Account with a Family Member

If you have a family member that has good credit and good payment history, see if you can become an authorized user on their account. When you do this, their good payment history will begin to show on your credit report for the account as well. If you are going to try this tip, it’s important that you know for a fact that they person has a good account history. If they have late payments or a negative history on the account that will negatively affect your credit score.

5. Don’t Try to Add Other Accounts

People used to believe it could help your credit history if you could get other companies, like your phone company or electric company, to report your account history to the credit bureaus. They believed that if these companies added an account with good payment history to their credit report it could help boost their numbers.

However, credit companies are slowly starting to work on making some of these changes. This is not a strategy that is worth your time. Make sure you are keeping good payment histories with these types of companies though, because past due payments will show up on your credit report.

Improving your credit score can seem like a big task, but if you stick to these strategies you can start seeing improvement in as little as one to two months. Once you are on the right path keep working at it so you don’t let your score start to slip again. If you start working 6 months to a year before you are ready to buy a house, you can set yourself on the path to mortgage approval and a low interest rate that will save you thousands.