This is certainly more geared towards the guys, but once I saw the headline it made me want to read and share with everyone.
It’s a list of 5 things you can learn about credit from popular gangster movies.
Here is the link, enjoy! Credit Advice From Gangster Flicks
One of the most important factors that affects your credit score is the total balances versus the total available credit limits.
Most people don’t realize that the balance on your credit card can affect your credit scores almost as much as a late payment. Now, it doesn’t matter the balance on a specific credit card, unless you only have one card open, but the total amount of all balances of your cards versus the total available credit.
Example: If you have 3 credit cards, all with credit limits of $1000, your total available credit is $3000. If you have a balance of $300 on all three cards, your total balance is $900. Take $900 (the total amount of balances) and divide that by $3000 (the total available credit) and you will get a percentage of 30%. If this percentage exceeds 30%, it will start to affect your credit scores.
Some people ask if they should close a credit card account, because they don’t use it anymore or want to avoid using it. Well, this could affect your credit score.
Take the example above and let’s say you transferred that $300 balance to one of the other cards and closed that credit card account. Now, you have two credit accounts open, but you still have the same total balance of $900. Take the $900 in total balances and divide that by the total available credit, which is now $2000 and the percentage becomes 45%. This will affect your credit scores.
Before you close a credit card, figure out your total balances and total available credit, so you will know if it will affect your credit scores.
Learn more about credit:
Credit Advice About Choosing A Credit Card
Understand The Simple Steps To Build Credit Scores
Top 3 Things To Improve Your Credit Score
It’s important to our readers that you find all the mortgage advice and credit advice you can possibly find. So, I have taken the time to list a few places that you should visit and soak up all the mortgage advice you can take.
Hope this helps!
Mortgage Advice Forums- I personally subscribe to this forum and help answer questions that people may have. Bruce Brown, the creator, is very good at responding to everyone’s questions and concerns when looking for mortgage advice.
Zillow- Great place to get all kinds of advice, not just mortgage or credit advice. Zillow has been around for awhile now and has been very popular with real estate in general. If you haven’t heard of them yet, take the time to browse over the available advice and go from there.
Mortgageloan.com – I personally get many questions from the site, because of the amount of people that go to it for questions and advice. Great place to soak in some more mortgage advice and mortgage news.
Lexington Law – Credit Report Repair - Credit advice for anyone that needs help with correcting things on their credit report. What’s great about them is that you can call their 800 number and talk to someone that will tell you if they can help you or not, right from the start.
Ask Max – Very helpful information when it comes to credit advice. There is also advice about paying off debt or debt consolidation. I even browse this for myself from time to time.
Equifax - Not just a place to pull your credit report. They have a learning center that is very educational for credit advice. It also very important you look into identity theft protection, since this is the highest form of theft today.
This is a very serious topic and only getting more serious, because theft and fraud will only continue to increase while we are in a struggling economy.
This sentence alone should make you think about identity theft protection:
“Identity theft has become more prevalent, with nearly 10 million American victims losing $48 billion in 2008.”
We give credit advice on this blog, so we only thought it was only right to talk about identity theft protection.
The number of identity theft victims rose 22% to a record 9.9 million in 2008 from 8.1 million a year earlier, with about one in 23 U.S. adults becoming victims, according to the fifth annual study by Javelin Strategy & Research. (source: cnnmoney.com)
When it comes to a subject like identity theft, strong statements like, 10 millions American victims, should make you stop and think about looking into getting identity protection for yourself and your family. Even though we can give you advice on what to do to correct your credit report, there is not much we can advise on when it comes to falling victim to identity theft. The only cure is prevention.
ProtectMyId is an extremely good identity theft protection program. Along with identity theft protection, you also get your 3 credit score reports and regular credit and theft monitoring.
If there is one thing that will only cost you a few dollars and help prevent a lot of frustration, time, and money it’s getting some sort of identity theft protection.
There is still one mortgage program that allows you to refinance without having to verify your credit scores.
Yes, you can have a credit score in the 500’s, or even lower, and still get approved for a mortgage refinance.
The only program that allows this approval is called a FHA Streamline Refinance.
What is a FHA streamline refinance?
It’s similar to a regular mortgage refinance, but your current mortgage loan that is being paid off has to a FHA loan as well. So, you are basically going from an existing FHA mortgage loan to a new FHA mortgage loan.
Now, a streamline does not allow you to take any additional cashout. The purpose of the streamline refinance is to lower your existing interest rate, if available at that time.
What are the benefits of doing an FHA stramline refinance?
The most popular reasons why someone would qualify for a streamline versus any other mortgage loan are the following:
This program has become extremely popular for these types of people:
The FHA streamline refinance will continue to be one of the most popular mortgage refinance programs on the market. The mortgage rates continue to be at historic lows, so anyone currently in a FHA mortgage loan will benefit from refinancing into these lower interest rates.
If you would like a second, or even a third, opinion on the refinance you are looking to do, please don’t hesitate to contact me. On the top of this site, you can check out the list of states I’m able to help someone with financing.