3 Simple Ways to Boost Your Credit Score

Thinking about applying for a mortgage but unsure if your credit score is strong enough? Here are three simple things you can do to boost your credit score and ensure that you’re on strong footing:

1. Pay Your Bills on Time – It’s difficult to overstate just how important paying your bills on time is, when it comes to your credit score; in fact, according to FICO, your payment history accounts for 35 percent of your credit score! Therefore, make sure you’re taking every necessary step to paying your bills and credit cards on time, whether it be through email/text message reminders via your banking portals or automatic payments through your credit card providers.

2. Keep Your Balances Low – According to FICO, the amount of debt you owe contributes to 30 percent of your credit score, so it will be important to not only keep your balances low on credit cards (high balances can negatively impact a credit score), but to also pay off such debts, rather than moving them around to other sources of credit.

3. Avoid New Lines of Credit – Finally, speaking of new sources of credit, do not open or close any credit lines in the run-up to your mortgage application. Sure, closing unused credit cards or increasing your available credit may seem like good short-term strategies to raising your score, but they could actually backfire and lower your score, and for one simple reason – stability; simply put, stability is the best friend of your credit score, and anything that is the enemy of stability will be the enemy of your credit score!

Source: http://www.myfico.com/crediteducation/improveyourscore.aspx.