UNDERSTANDING CREDIT SCORES AND HOW THEY WORK

When people ask me do we offer credit repair, I am often surprised that they ask. I am often like, "Are they serious?" if the name of the business, doesn't get that across, I do not know what to say. In today's post, I want to capture what really goes on with the elusive credit scores and how they work when applying for credit. This is directly related to why this company goes out of its way to educate people on all levels about how to deal with the credit problems. Credit scores are generated essentially through a myriad of systems called "algorithms". That's a fancy term that sets a "standard" in which any of the three main scores are calculated based on any given lender's capacity or interest to evaluate someones ability to repay a debt. The scale most often associated with a certain score and value looks like this:

People truly feel like they are climbing some elusive ladder of privilege or status to get to a 700 credit score. In some cases it may very well seem that way when you look at the interest rates someone can pay for the use of a credit card or installment payment terms to buy products and services. So how do they REALLY WORK? Well, first it's important to understand that not every scoring system uses the same algorithm. What that means is, Bank of America may have a totally different way they review your credit status than say, Citibank. Both banks indeed offer credit cards, auto loans, and even lines of credit. What each bank may feel is top tier credit scores for low interest rate lending may in fact vary. 

Let's look closer: You checked your credit score online first because you have been following my advice and know that you should not apply anywhere without checking your scores first. So you review your credit scores by setting up an online credit monitoring service and discover your credit scores are in the high 600's.  Specifically, you have an Experian score of 678, a Equifax score of 650 and Transunion reports a score of 693. Now, you are armed with some way of having an intelligent conversation about your status. So next you apply with Bank of America in person for a credit card you feel you should have no problem being approved for. You sit while your credit is bring reviewed by the bank representative and they share you are not approved for that particular card. You wonder why? That representative may offer another option since you are in the bank. It has very different terms and the interest rate is not what you had in mind, but you take it because you do not want to be declined completely. What just happened? You fell in what is called a "Tier system" and review.

Your not a bad credit client, but the score was not high enough for the card you actually wanted.

Every lender has some kind of Tier system and often those really hot offers with zero percent interest rates for 6 months and 5% rebates and vacation points, etc; are designed to capture the credit scores of people who are considered "Top and Elite'. How can you become the Top tier and Elite of approved offers and opportunities, well it's not simple and not easy either; but it is doable and actionable if you are not hell bent of running up your credit card balances every month.

Here are 5 WAYS TO GET TO TOP TIER STATUS:

1) Always pay your credit cards, loans before the date payment is due. 

2) Pay more than the minimum! If you are due to pay $15, pay $30.

3) Never, never, ever spend more than the approved credit line!

4) You do not have to spend on every card you own. Learn to manage your cash!

5) Do not apply for credit cards just because you get an offer. Value your credit information and be careful with the terms and conditions of your credit cards and loans. Spend time developing a relationship with those lenders. 

Using the information shared here, credit scores have a new significance aside from just getting a high score. It takes time, structure and clarity in how to use credit in which your scores will increase and those prime offers will be offered to you! I hope you've enjoyed this post and please let us know how we can help you!

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SMART HOLIDAY CREDIT TIP #1

The Holiday's are here ALREADY and how fast they came this year! As I finalize all of the business going on with our service house, many things have come to our attention throughout the year as we service clients working on their credit files. We wanted to provide some of those insights in this series for the 2014 Holiday and Christmas season. So much goes on in the world, we get blind-sighted by poor disclosures, popular advertising and third-party data collection activities, that we often do not realize how are very personal information is being handled and transmitted. Many clients we help contact us because at some point they were duped by an offer they thought was a good deal and when we activated an account  to pursue an offer of some kind, they are then captured into some unknown or unclear disclosure relating to their action. It then becomes an issue of Terms and Conditions in which that "offer" was presented. It could look something like this image here:




This is an every increasing challenge for many people because they may not recognize, some kind of expectation is met with that "offer" in which they advertiser or even a BIG BOX STORE wants to engage with you to get your business. Our tip today is: Make sure that before you click or press submit online to an "offer" that you have read the terms and condition of that govern that website for use. Be careful who and where you share your personal details. If there is a WEB SUPPORT, click on the icon to ask for clarification to ensure are in agreement with the actions of the "offer" and whatever will come from that later by way of an email or some kind of advertising.  Often credit problems start with opportunities that sound good at first and really wound up costing you a whole money and headache.

We hope you find this post helpful! Be Safe! 

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5 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW TO MOVE FORWARD WITH CREDIT RESTORATION

Sometimes credit restoration and repair can be a painful process. We know all too well how changes in the way you spend and income disparities can throw everything in your life in a flux. It's important to overcome the fear of failure in any of this because if you don't get a handle on how you do things your credit will forever suffer.  

Here are five things you need to know to move forward:

1)    Identify your motive to make the necessary financial changes real. There has to be something that matters to you enough to commitment to YOURSELF. I used to love to shop, and at one point Marshall's was my favorite store. I could not ever dry by a Marshall's in any part of the country and not stop in. I was a true SHOPAHOLIC.. What finally broke me of this habit was the burning desire to own my own business and invest in real estate.

2)    Sit down and document your true budget for your household. Everyone should do this because if you do not take an account of what is truly happening with your finances, you can never get an edge in your future as opportunities present themselves. Money has a funny way of growing or shrinking when the mindset of the person handling it is incapable of discerning their situation. I am saying - you must know everything to move   forward, but you have to be honest so a blessing can develop on your behalf because you were honest and willing to get organized.

3)    Locate a true friend and confidant to help you keep your commitment. Getting out of a jam is a lot like losing weight, it helps to have some encouragement from someone you admire and respect. Maybe there is a friend who just seems to always save a every month no matter what, you want to capture some of that fire and determination. 

4)    Gather all the knowledge you can muster to make sound decisions as you take on this new direction. Reading is amazing! Learn from the many available resources in the marketplace. 

5)    Give yourself time to adjust to this new way of thinking.

Spend at least one day a week reflecting where your headed to keep pace with your perspective each day. Sometimes our lives move so fast, we can barely keep up with ourselves. Making time to just gather your thoughts will go a long way in making some sound decisions.

Want to learn more about us - Grab our free REPORT here: http://www.getgr8tcreditvip.com/

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Can Credit Repair Increase Credit Scores?

Credit scores are always at the top of the list for any lender when reviewing a credit application. There is alot that goes into the phases of credit repair and restoration and many people learn that your score doesn't automatically increase with the work. often when my team and I review a credit report, the old history has been damaged with late payments and eventually accounts that were the oldest have been charged-off by the original creditor. What then has to happen is that the client now has to re-build their credit history from scratch as if it never existed. This is an on-going confusing issue that aggravates people who seek help. Alot of credit specialists and so-called gurus provide terrible information about how credit can be re-built and re-established and when to do so.

Conventional lending has it's barriers to the process because they often recommend secured credit cards to re-estabish credit and help build credit scores, but that is pretty worthless when buying a home in this new market. It's important that you recognize that correcting your credit files are the intial phase of your credit recovery. Your scores can drop sometimes while the collection are being deleted and whatever else has been identified to be erroneous, irrelevant or un-verifiable. You should never assume that credit repair increases scores.

There so many factors that could impact credit scores and even the work itself. Credit scores can be increased at a later time and once your credit repair and restoration work has progressed to a place where a credit building plan can be implemented. Our team is extremely effective in this area and our clients are able to buy homes, and get approved for credit cards on their own after working with us.

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Home Buyer's Assistance is Here to Help!

November is here already and 2014 is just a little less than 2 months away from being over! I cannot believe how fast this year has gone!!

We've been busy working on moving challenged clients from credit distasters to better masters of their finances, and have watched amazing things transform in their lives. It's been a pleasure to see families get ahead FINALLY!

I have seen a long awaited program become highly successful in 2014, and wanted to share the great news with YOU!!

In 2012 I saw how much the real estate collapse had impacted people I knew from close friends to even professional associates that literally got clobbered in the real estate market. Some of them have yet to get back to where they were even today.
It was heartbreaking to see and I thought long and hard of a way to help educate people who needed to get better prepared to move forward into homeownership this time around even if they had been previous owners to those that watched the madness from the sidelines.

I spent alot of time developing ways to capture the distance between credit challenged individuals and families to the immediate market demands now necessary to bring a client through the mortgage process. It's quite daunting and helping them understand takes time.  So while I sought to build a strong team of professionals to help me assist potential clients, I also found that the media works over time to add the public's confusion and took another step to publish our program's functions in a quarterly magazine.

I appreciate you so much I wanted to share it with you, so that you are up on what we are doing to make the mortgage process easier to understand and bridge the gap for those that need credit help.

Our program is called Home Buyer's Assistance or HBA for short. We have the capacity to do alot for real estate and mortgage professionals, because we can close the gap for deals that are hard to fund and better educate your clients.

Credit challenged clients can get the help they need because they won't feel like they are dealing street hustlers and those that run gimmicks to get their business.

The credit industry has changed alot and it's harder to clean files now more than ever, but our long time experience and understanding of the changing financial infrastructure is why we are able to work at this level.

Please enjoy this e-version for HBA, we appreciate your readership! Please email me with any questions you may have as we are happy to help you!

http://www.getgr8tcreditvip.com/hba/index.html#/0

It's been a pleasure being your source of great news, commentary, tools, education and training in the credit industry.


All the Best,

Alexis - The Credit DIVA!

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5 WAYS TO MANAGE YOUR MONEY HABITS

Everywhere you look, there is a commercial that caters to people who have some kind of credit problem. Commercials on TV flood your views in between your favorite shows on "How to get loans because you need a second chance" or "Buy a Car for $99 down even with problem credit". It's like you simply do not have to figure out how to restore your credit situation because, no matter what someone is lining up to take your hard earned money and charge you record interest rates! Bad credit can be a thing in the past for you, but you must understand that a change has to happen to get to a place where you can command the best opportunities in life. In this article I am going to layout some very important points to add to your tool belt as you recover from old credit problems. Yes, it is still called Credit Recovery...because you are in recovery until you reach the other side. The other side is where you can acquire a non-secured credit card with an interest rate below 10% or zero introductory rate for 12 months, that's where you are taking advantage of the best offers. So what are the best ways to address poor money habits? Here are 5 very important tools:

1. Get a desk calendar and write down every expense you have for a given month. Plan out far as you can, document even cell phone bills, utility bill, any and living expenses.

2. Take an inventory of the extra stuff, like beauty care, fun expenses and on a separate sheet of paper, lay out what you spend down to the dime.

3. If you have existing credit card balances, get out your last 3 months statements and grab a highlighter pen. Next you should use that pen to capture every item recorded that matches the beauty and extra stuff that you documented on that piece of paper separate fro m the calendar, and add it up This total will give you an idea of where you EXTRA cash is going that could be potentially used for the balances that cause your credit problem. That problem could be overspending, late payments and/or unable to acquire new credit because your existing payment history is in-consistent.

4. Now go back to that desk calendar and take a hard look at your bill payment patterns, is there something you could do differently? Perhaps a balance your carrying could be paid off sooner than later. Balances have significant impact on what your payment history says about you. High balances every month signal your credit card issuer that you may have a management problem. Balances are also recorded on your credit report every month including the highest balance for any given month. This balance is factored into your ability to get credit line increases.

5. By getting a true picture of what you are doing with your money on paper, on a calendar and based on what you do from one day to the next, you start to see why you are having the problems that you are faced with. Also, you can decide and determine what you are willing to do to correct the situation. I am a big supporter of sacrificing the wants to get to as place that allows for more freedom. Money problems are camouflaged by habits we think we cannot break, but it's a game-changer when we beat the instinct not to make adjustments.

 In conclusion, you have more control than you realize. Managing money starts with every day expenses and prioritizing them. Credit care is in totality what results in our abitity to structure our decisions that affect our credit report history and long-term borrowing power.

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5 Things You Can Do Today to Give Yourself An Edge!

There is that un-settling feeling you get when you realize that if you have an emergency tomorrow, you may not be able to handle it financially. I know that feeling and it's extremely nerve wrecking! In my conversations with clients they often are so fixated on having money to spend for the Holidays or even Birthday's but cannot get in the mindset of planning for their future in anyway shape of form; is still quite surprising to me.

There are ways to get yourself primed and acclimated to re-organizing your financial life.
They key this is writing down a plan. Since I am always interested in increasing my abilities in my personal efforts and commitments, I also engage my clients to do the same. When I am seeking out new ways to 'give me the edge' I need to become more successful, I wanted to share some points here I have found truly work!

1) Take an inventory of what you spend your time doing? Are you more engaged in other people's lives than in your own? Sometimes we accept other' successes and ways of doing things and fail to "get to know are own unique contributions to what we do in life"  Dealing with you takes a ton of time and what you may spend giving to others could be your link to a form of escapism.

2) Have you ever documented your spending? This is something that is widely under-estimated. When you take the time to write down where you are spending every red cent, it will amaze you that it may be linked to activities that foster your money habits. Bad credit is born of an instinct to escape and "check out" from real life a lot of time.

3) Does family get in the way of your budget? Are you lending money to family situations? This is a HUGE deal for people I coach. I love my family and I can share many, many stories about what I have gone through with my finances in helping them. I have been through the FIRE! I bet you have too! It happens to many people I meet in my consultations and it is expressed that money has been lost to help a family member and somehow it led to them getting off track with their bills, other monthly commitments. They key here to set limits and offer encouragement in place of cash.

4) Do you read to develop your mind? In this world of reality shows, the Kardashians, Youtube and HULU; does anyone read anymore? Your interpersonal development and confidence will grow more with a book than anything else you are doing now. Reading still challenges your perspective and allows you to see yourself and your future from a position of creativity and ideas. It's your brain-fuel like a vitamin but with purpose!

5) Get a hobby! You may work for someone or even be self-employed. Working is something you will do that you will always do until you are able to retire! Having an outlet that you truly love, enjoy, keeps you centered and can offset stress is a must in everyone's life. Finding and commiting to that activity will do wonders for your life because you have a way to engage your heart in something that makes living fun and rewarding!


I share these 5 things because credit problems are born of the ideas I shared here. People over-spend, get in financial trouble over impulses that are deeply rooted and have a way of taking the living out of life.
Tackling credit problems first when these issues are in the picture can seem daunting. Being ready means you are ready to get your life back and that requires a sense of self, clarity and purpose! :)

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