Credit - Bad Credit: 3 Rapid Ways To Fix Or Repair

With the deluge of information available and extraordinary offers from companies to fix or repair your bad credit, it is difficult to believe that 80% of cases can be resolved in short-order by only focusing on a few areas of a credit report. Based on my experience as a mortgage professional and credit analyst, I can usually pinpoint the cause of a low credit score with a few simple steps and increase the credit score within 30 days.

Here are the 3 most common credit issues I uncover and the fastest way to resolve them.

Credit card balances exceed 30% of the credit limit:

1. Pay down the credit cards to less than 30 percent of the credit limit
2. Ask the credit card company to increase the limit. This can sometimes be done on your online banking system. If not, here are the questions to ask over the phone:
- Can you increase my credit limit without pulling my credit score?
- Can I request a specific limit or will you deny me all together? Will you make a counter offer?
3. If you have some credit cards with low balances, transfer funds from one card to another so that each has less than a 30% balance
4. If you are 4 months from needing a mortgage, obtain a new credit card and transfer balances so each is less than 30% of the credit limit

Remove all errors from your credit report:

Concentrate only on high priority errors that happened within the last 2 years. High priorities are:
1. Information that is listed more than once, verify there are no duplicate collections
2. Negative payment history
3. Bankruptcy items that are still showing as past due accounts
4. Accounts that are not yours
5. Collection notices that are not yours
6. Social Security Numbers and names that are not yours
7. Accuracy of credit limits; no reporting or low limits can hurt

Do NOT focus on date of birth, address, wrong employer, delinquencies older than 2 years or wrong account numbers.

Collections or Charge Offs showing on the credit report:

1. Never pay a collection unless the creditor or collection agency has not agreed to delete the collection in writing. Paying a collection is like admitting guilt and this will lower your credit score.
2. Collections 2 years or older will only hurt your credit minimally and they are not worth pursuing.
3. Try to get the collection deleted from your credit report by receiving a letter of deletion from the creditor or collection agency.
4. Always negotiate charge-offs before settling a payment. Most creditors will accept less than 50% of the remaining balance.

By focusing on just these 3 areas of your credit report, you can dramatically increase your credit score within 60 days.