CALIFORNIA, Md. – If you’re questioning your credit, Chris Hill and Mark Frisco, local real estate agents, have tips that will help raise your score and land you your next home.
On the 23rd episode of “Get Real with Chris & Mark,” the hosts ‘Get Real’ on how credit works, how you can improve your credit, and the negative things that impact your credit.
At the beginning of the episode, Chris and Mark mentioned that as real estate agents, lenders often help their clients buy homes. Throughout the years, Mark has had one-on-one training from a local lender.
First things first, establish your credit.
“The recipe that most lenders look for is one or two credit cards and one or two installment lines. An installment line would be like a car loan, or maybe you consolidated debt and are making a payment on something regularly. It’s a loan you’re paying flat monthly over a term,” explained Mark.
In summary, Mark explained that the purpose of credit is to show that you can pay something back over time.
“Your credit is based off of what’s called your middle score. So what they do is look at all three. They throw out the low one. They throw out the high one, and that’s the score they use,” Mark continued.
Chris challenged Mark’s theory of only using good credit by mentioning situations where people use credit just to get by.
“It’s budgeting, or maybe it’s just the income. They’ve had a dropoff in employment. But either way, it boils back to budgeting,” expressed Mark.
“There are folks out there that can break out to you how you can live an incredibly frugal fashion, to the point where you only spend a dollar or two dollars on a meal. It’s possible. It’s whether or not you choose to be disciplined enough to do that,” Mark finished.
The duo discussed how the limit on your credit is a crucial factor to pay attention to when trying to raise your credit score.
“If you have a thousand dollar credit card, and you have a thousand dollar balance, that is hurting your credit score by as much as 70 points,” Mark noted.
Mark’s point also means that you can gain a “positive impact on your credit by keeping it below 10% of that limit,” he said.
They also mentioned that another thing that hurts a lot of people’s credit is hidden collections.
“You didn’t pay a bill. A lot of the time, it’s like a cable bill. That collection can hurt you by 70 points,” exclaimed Mark.
Chris & Mark also emphasized the importance of keeping accounts open once you pay them off.
“A lot of people think, ‘I’m going to pay this off and close the account,’ well closing your account, you’re eliminating all of your credit history,” Mark suggested.
The hosts said that the best and easiest way to determine the direction with your credit is to pull a report.
Chris finished the episode by saying viewers should talk to a lending professional to get the best advice for their personal situation.
Check out the full episode for more tips, plus a discussion on how to become a millionaire by saving: https://youtu.be/SXa9T7wGHCk
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Once a week, Century 21 New Millennium Realtors Chris Hill and Mark Frisco ‘Get Real’ with topics surrounding life in Southern Maryland while showcasing local business tastings and highlighting hidden gems in the area.
You can watch or listen to previous episodes at: www.thebaynet.com/podcasts
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about credit scoress — annapolis should do something about this, this session, even if they have no plans to. We should not be subject to credit scores if we don’t have directions about how to improve the score, how long it will take, + its something we can actually do. your life should not have to revolve around the credit bureaus + how they expect you to live. You should not have to be a green beret to have an affordable cost- of- living. Your credit score impacts your cost of living\ your credit score is your cost of living. When someone has a high credit score, its an approval of the way they live + when they have a low score, its a disapproval. Its a fair question to ask, I imagine credit scores are not useless, but are banks + credit unions loyal to credit bureaus + why? Are they loyal to credit scores + why? because I thought ……… they were supposed to loyal to their members\ customers.