{"id":513,"date":"2017-04-03T19:35:40","date_gmt":"2017-04-03T23:35:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.juliafreeman.ca\/blog\/?p=513"},"modified":"2017-04-03T19:35:40","modified_gmt":"2017-04-03T23:35:40","slug":"the-growing-importance-of-a-good-credit-score","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juliafreeman.ca\/blog\/2017\/04\/the-growing-importance-of-a-good-credit-score\/","title":{"rendered":"The Growing Importance of a Good Credit Score"},"content":{"rendered":"

Never before has a one’s credit score been so important with regard to one’s mortgage rate.\u00a0 With recent changes by OSFI on capital requirements on the default insurers, tying credit scores to the capital formula more, more lenders are setting mortgage rates based on credit score and set minimum scores standards for certain products.<\/strong>\u00a0 \u00a0Some products require a 720 credit score.\u00a0 A 720 vs 650 score can, in some cases, result in a .25% better rate.<\/p>\n

Most people have no idea how credit scores are determined but here is a summary of things one can do to maintain a strong credit score:<\/p>\n

The key factors in maintaining a strong credit score are:<\/p>\n

\u2022 Minimize the number of inquiries granted to creditors (you score goes down slightly each time a company pulls your credit score (car loan, credit card application, bank loan etc. etc) so don\u2019t credit seek \u2013 you only need 1 or 2 credit cards).<\/p>\n

\u2022 Never let the balance hit the maximum allowable limit and if it does, pay it down immediately \u2013 don\u2019t let it stay maxed or near maxed for any period of time.\u00a0 Try not to have it remain over 65% of the allowable limit.<\/p>\n

\u2022 At the very least, always pay the minimum balance on time but if possible pay off more than the minimum or ideally pay it off completely each month.\u00a0 Just the minimum will hurt the score over time especially if the balance is high and several cards are in this scenario.<\/p>\n

\u2022 The longer you have a credit product the better (assuming it has been paid on time).<\/p>\n

\u2022 R1\/I1\u2019s are good \u2013 lenders look for these as they indicate that revolving or installment payments are paid up to date as agreed.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Be sure to clear any disputes or collections.\u00a0 That $50 dispute with your gym membership isn\u2019t worth having your credit ruined.\u00a0 Get it resolved immediately.\u00a0 It is not easy to fix after the fact as once the score is damaged, in most cases only proper repayment and time will repair it.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Don\u2019t be late with payments ever.<\/p>\n

Thank you to our partner Derek Christianson for this information.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Never before has a one’s credit score been so important with regard to one’s mortgage rate.\u00a0 With recent changes by OSFI on capital requirements on the default insurers, tying credit … [read more<\/a>]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juliafreeman.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juliafreeman.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juliafreeman.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juliafreeman.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juliafreeman.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=513"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.juliafreeman.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":519,"href":"https:\/\/www.juliafreeman.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513\/revisions\/519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juliafreeman.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juliafreeman.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juliafreeman.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}