Lowering Your Risk

Once you start thinking about house hunting, you’ll want to check your credit reports and credit scores, since negative entries on your credit reports may hurt your chances of getting approved for a mortgage. Inaccuracies on credit reports are more common than you may think, which is why it’s a good idea to review your reports as often as you can. (Everyone is entitled to free annual copies of their credit reports from each of the three major credit reporting agencies.) Checking your credit scores is easy and helpful, too. There are plenty of free tools available to assess your credit risk, like Credit.com’s Credit Report Card. If you see a score lower than you’d like, it’s an indication you need to change some of your credit behaviors. That could mean reducing your debt load, making your bill payments on time or restricting how often you apply for new credit. The Credit Report Card breaks down the five factors that determine your credit score and allows you to see which areas require your attention. Whenever you’re checking credit scores, make sure you’re comparing the same model from month to month (or however often you can check them), because there are scores of different models, and you can only accurately gauge changes by periodically looking at the same score. Call 1-800-442-1591; http://www.bancoservices.org