If you are searching for a loan for anything, your credit score is going to determine how much interest you are going to pay, or if you qualify for a loan or line of credit at all.
Today, it is harder to get a mortgage than ever before, and many people are struggling to find help with buying a home.
One way to get the loan that you need is to find a way to raise credit score to an acceptable level.
There are some things you can do, but remember, paying off your debt is the best way to do this, even if it takes longer than you want it to.
Better to start off with a new home with no debt anyway.
The first thing you should do to raise credit score is to make sure each ding in your credit is actually real.
There are times when the debt simply goes on the wrong credit report.
This happens to people with the same name or with similar social security numbers.
It can also happen in the case of identity theft.
You have to get a copy of your credit report from each of the three reporting agencies and then you have to go over it thoroughly.
If you see anything that does not look right, dispute the debt.
Unless the company can prove it is your debt, it will be removed from your credit report.
Secondly, after you have gone over your report, find the small debts that you may have forgotten about and pay them off as soon as you can.
Some people have twenty and forty dollar debts from medical co-pays that they forget all about that end up marring their reports.
If you find some of these, or small debts otherwise that you could pay off to raise credit score numbers, make a list of what you can pay and pay one or two off each week.
Your credit number should slowly start to go up once they report that you have paid these debts off in full.
You can then think about ways to pay off your larger debts if you want to raise credit score numbers on your report.
These are going to be harder, especially if you are on a limited budget.
Remember that you should not get a mortgage until you are in a good financial place, so there is no harm in paying these off slowly as you work to improve your situation.
Try to talk to each company and find out what you can do to set up a payment arrangement.
While paying your debts on time is the best thing for your credit report, leaving them unpaid on your report is the worst thing you can do.
You can also talk to some companies that offer to help raise credit score and tighten up credit reports.
What you should do is be very choosy about who you trust.
There are some great credit repair companies and consumer credit counseling agencies that can help, but there are also some shady companies that can not live up to what they claim.
Think about how reasonable their promises are and if you think they sound legitimate.
Then check with the Better Business Bureau to see if there have been any complaints.