Hard or soft, that’s really what matters when it comes to credit inquiries. Soft inquiries When you look up your own credit history or score, that’s a soft inquiry. It doesn’t damage your score at all. If you use a credit monitoring service, chances are that...
Student Loans Your Credit Score Your student loans are a reflection of the dreams you had when you started school. But now your financial goals are at risk because of those loans. You may have heard that paying off student loans too fast can hurt your...
Credit Score Myths Credit scores and credit scoring systems are complex and at times hard to understand. As a result there’s a lot of misinformation that floats around the public sphere and as with anything this can sometimes lead to widespread rumors that just simply aren’t...
Insurance Rates and Credit Scores It seems like almost everything is affected by credit scores. Most people probably don’t think about insurance as being something that is affected by their credit scores - what does one have to do with the other? Unfortunately, insurance rates in...
FCRA, The Fair Credit Reporting Act October 26, 1970 was the day the Fair Credit Reporting Act started protecting you against mishandling of your credit information and gave you access to review it yourself. But why is the FRCA a big deal? In the wild days before...
You don’t have much money saved for a down payment, but you want a home. These days, you have several options for no-down-payment loans. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) both offer no-down-payment loans, and the Navy...
The credit industry is at a crisis point. On the one hand, inaccurate reporting is hurting credit scores and causing a lack of trust. On the other hand, the scoring system itself is broken. It has proven time and time again that it isn’t a...
You might feel like you’re on your own when it comes to your credit, but that’s far from the truth. In reality, the government passed the Fair Credit Reporting Act to protect consumers just like you. This act states that all of the information on...
You want to buy a home but, before you move forward, you need to make sure that everything is in order. That includes establishing a stable income. If you don’t have a stable income, you won’t find a lender to loan you the money. It’s...
Home ownership is about so much more than a monthly payment. You need to think about the additional expenses that home ownership entails before you can truly prepare for taking on this huge responsibility. Look at what you can expect to spend when you own...