You may recall Fannie Mae’s October 2015 announcement regarding their planned use of trended credit data beginning in 2016: Fannie Announcement on Trended Data. Although implementation information from Fannie Mae has been scarce since this initial announcement, Advantage Credit has recently received updates from the two national credit bureaus, Equifax and Transunion, who are participating … Read more
There’s no doubt that having a mortgage on your credit report can be a big help to your credit scores. However if you file bankruptcy you may notice that your mortgage is no longer reporting or at least no longer reporting your monthly payments. This is even if you have continued to make payments on … Read more
The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), the agency that oversees mortgage investors Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, have ordered the companies to make plans to utilize alternate and/or updated scoring models in 2016 and to move forward in implementing them. This change would have a major impact on credit reports once they are implemented. Right … Read more
Being an authorized user on someone else’s credit card can sometimes be a double-edged sword, as can having someone as an authorized user on one of your credit cards. At the onset it might seem like a good idea and even help, but without proper consideration it might not turn out to be such a … Read more
It’s that time of year again. Christmas music, holiday lights, beautifully decorated trees and lots and lots of presents. It’s also the time of year when a lot of consumer’s credit scores drop the most. This could take the entire next year, if not longer, from which to recover. This is especially true if the … Read more
Inquiries can be quite a dilemma! They are surrounded by confusion and questions: How much do they affect your credit score? What inquiries do and don’t affect your scores? What about rate shopping? What’s the difference between a hard and a soft inquiry? Inquiries can be frustrating because they may have an impact on your … Read more
Everyone knows that credit scores can be confusing; how they are calculated, what goes into them, why they change, etc. There are constant inquiries from frustrated loan officers and borrowers not understanding why a score is low when they can find nothing wrong on the credit report. No late payments, or maybe just an old … Read more
How long do items stay on a credit report? A lot of people will answer that question with a simple: “seven years.” In some cases this is true. Overall though, it’s not that simple. Both positive and negative items have a “life span” and those are not all the same. Let’s start with something simple. … Read more
One of the most frequently asked questions we get regarding credit reports is: “When do creditors report to the bureaus?” There is a misconception that creditors report their information at the beginning of every month and that credit reports update at that time as well. But in the world of credit reporting that would make … Read more
A presentation of the Did You Know Series Did you know…The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has an abundance of free publications that you can order to help you with your credit? They offer publications on topics such as: How to Build a Better Credit Report, Understanding Your Credit Scores, How to Deal With Debt, Understanding … Read more