When contemplating real estate investment, you need to understand your credit information through your credit reports and credit score. Lenders use this information to determine if they will give you loans.

You can order your credit report through Equifax, Experian, TransUnion and other online resources. FICO is an abbreviation for the Fair Isaac Corporation, the first company to offer a credit-risk model with a score and is named after the founders, Bill Fair and Earl Isaac. The credit score model devised by FICO in the 1950s is still a primary method for determining your creditworthiness. Again, you can find your FICO score through multiple online resources. You should never have to pay for your credit report or FICO score.

The process is abstract, but the results are real. There’s some new, and bad, news about those numbers. More than a quarter of Americans now have scores of 599 or lower. Banks rarely approve loans for anyone below the 599. The first step is knowledge, gather all your credit information. You will need to review your credit reports to see if there is anything you should dispute, what is impacting your score, and areas you can improve you score for future investments.

Contact us to learn more about credit scores and real estate investing.