How can I improve my credit score

HazYu

My credit score lies at a poor 400 and I need to get a mortgage desperately. I know it is not good for me to get a mortgage at this juncture but it is an emergency. I have talked to the mortgage agents at The Financial Forum at Toronto and they are ready to give me the mortgage but since my credit score is poor the rate is a little high. They have agreed to reduce the rates if I come back with a better score. Is there any possible way by which I can improve my credit score fast?

Enc

Short answer: No.

Longer answer: Your credit score reflects sound financial decisonmaking (in theory) and generally takes a good bit of time to develop. Having a credit card or line of credit you pay the balance off monthly, car payments you (likewise) pay off regularly without delay or fine, and other forms of showing you are a responsible and timely person to loan to are the only ways to update your credit score. In general, you typically are looking at something that will take 2-4 years to repair properly, and that means paying off all outstanding debts, student loans, or other items that may be negatively impacting your score.

There is no situation where you need a mortgage "desperately." If you have a credit score of 400 and don't have 30-50% cash on hand to put down against the mortgage you probably aren't going to be able to absorb the upkeep costs of owning a property (which are very considerable even for new properties).

What situation could possibly be an "emergency" mortgage? Especially in Toronto where housing prices are bonkers.

zepherin

Look HazYu, legally you are stuck. The credit repair agencies generally can't help to increase your credit in the short term, without engaging in a fraudulent practice.

And what is an emergency situation for a mortgage? I can see an emergency situation where you need a rental.

Lindsay Lohan

While I'm not sure if it works any differently in Canada than the US - do you have any sense of what it is that is causing the low score? 400 is really low by the standards over here.

We've been repairing ours over the past few years and I can say the quickest fixes for us came from getting bad stuff off our credit score like old bills that went to collections (sometimes saw an increase within 1 - 2 months) and paying existing credit cards down to have a larger percentage of our credit available.

I agree though - emergency mortgage seems odd. We had to rent an apartment for years because we had messed up our credit so bad.

Dr_Keenbean

As someone who has managed to get his credit score from -400 to 750+ I can say that there is no way to do it quickly. It has taken me about 7 years of making 0 mistakes.

The big upswing for me came when I bought a new car in 2012. I knew my credit was garbage and the interest rate would be atrocious (and it was) but I chose to eat it for a while to improve my credit and it worked extremely well. I have since been able to refinance my loan for a much lower rate since my credit has improved dramatically.

I don't know anything about mortgages since I may well be a renter for life, is it possible to do something similar?

bowen

The best way to improve credit is to use credit and pay it off on time.

Examples: New Vehicle loan, make every payment on time. Credit card, never miss a payment and never exceed 40% utilization if you can't make a payment. Student loan debt, make it on time.

Once you 'complete' a loan, your score will dip (you no longer have the available credit), but it will increase faster after the fact (you have a 'you're not a deadbeat' account on record as completed). Good debt like car loans and mortgages and student loan obviously help more.

At this point, OP, I'd advise against getting a mortgage. I'm surprised in Canada you'd even be considered, I have a hard time with my 650+ score.

You should consider getting secured credit cards or loans (car, personal loan) to help you recover quickly.

And you should get all the black marks off by settling old debts that haven't fallen off the report. So if you didn't pay a certain bill, fix it.

Darkewolfe

"Emergency mortgage" is usually abbreviated as "renting." Like, if your credit score is 400 you're probably likely to default on any mortgage, so the lenders are rightfully dubious and charge premiums due to the risk of loaning you money.

Quid

What in the world is an emergency mortgage?

bowen

I think it's "I haven't been able to find a good apartments and I don't want to be homeless" sort of situation.

Gaslight

It seems like making potentially decades-long commitments on an "emergency" basis is just not advisable, as a general rule.

Gin

You have no chance at getting a decent credit score for at least a few years. Start making other plans.

MichaelLC

Any broker who is suggesting you increase your score quickly is shady and should be avoided.

Fuzzy Cumulonimbus Cloud

You do not need to be getting an emergency loan with a 400 credit score. It will ruin your life.

dispatch.o

If you are for some reason attempting to "save" a family members home by purchasing it through or from them, which is one of the only situations I could see this really being an emergency then I would really advise you to rethink this or explore other options.

The reason you have a credit score of 400 is that you haven't shown you're capable of making financial decisions with the reliability a lender would like to see. This could be because you have an error in your credit report, it could be that you have insufficient credit history or it could be because you're bad with paying bills reliably. You can certainly try to fix any errors, but that wont really just add a few hundred points to your credit score over night.

Edit: To be honest, I'm a little surprised that you were offered a mortgage at all. I'm a bit frightened to ask, but what are the terms?

Fuzzy Cumulonimbus Cloud

dispatch.o wrote: »

If you are for some reason attempting to "save" a family members home by purchasing it through or from them, which is one of the only situations I could see this really being an emergency then I would really advise you to rethink this or explore other options.

The reason you have a credit score of 400 is that you haven't shown you're capable of making financial decisions with the reliability a lender would like to see. This could be because you have an error in your credit report, it could be that you have insufficient credit history or it could be because you're bad with paying bills reliably. You can certainly try to fix any errors, but that wont really just add a few hundred points to your credit score over night.

Edit: To be honest, I'm a little surprised that you were offered a mortgage at all. I'm a frightened to ask, but what are the terms?

Seriously! The offer will probably wreck your life. It has to be insane.

Gin

Not only are the terms almost certainly shitty, but do not think you can't have the property taken away from you if you can't keep up on the payments, which a credit score of 400 implies.

Every once in a while we purchase a foreclosed property at auction that is still occupied by the previous tenants who could not keep up with payments. These people often have such shitty credit scores we can't offer them any sort of rental agreement to stay in the home, so it's either GTFO or get arrested and have your shit thrown in the yard.

zepherin

Gin wrote: »

Not only are the terms almost certainly shitty, but do not think you can't have the property taken away from you if you can't keep up on the payments, which a credit score of 400 implies.

Every once in a while we purchase a foreclosed property at auction that is still occupied by the previous tenants who could not keep up with payments. These people often have such shitty credit scores we can't offer them any sort of rental agreement to stay in the home, so it's either GTFO or get arrested and have your shit thrown in the yard.

It's kind of a bad deal all around because when they leave, they often trash the place too. I used to do foreclosure inspections and the former owners used to leave to places annihilated.

Gin

zepherin wrote: »

Gin wrote: »

Not only are the terms almost certainly shitty, but do not think you can't have the property taken away from you if you can't keep up on the payments, which a credit score of 400 implies.

Every once in a while we purchase a foreclosed property at auction that is still occupied by the previous tenants who could not keep up with payments. These people often have such shitty credit scores we can't offer them any sort of rental agreement to stay in the home, so it's either GTFO or get arrested and have your shit thrown in the yard.

It's kind of a bad deal all around because when they leave, they often trash the place too. I used to do foreclosure inspections and the former owners used to leave to places annihilated.

Sometimes it's a good idea to offer a cash incentive for vacating peacefully, usually cheaper than having to do a bunch of rehab.

ceres

The topic is credit score, so please talk about that.

Jasconius

the only short term thing you can do is pay off credit card debt if you have it, and even that would take a month to kick in probably