when to repair credit
The best time to start repairing your credit is right now…..like this very second. It sounds cliche but allow me to explain. Many people will only start when trying to make a big purchase like a home or a car, but if you’ve waited to fix your credit up until then. I’ll be honest, you’re late to the game and here’s why.
The credit repair process takes time, there’s no way around it. Anyone selling you on an overnight fix or 3 day credit sweep is just trying to jack you for your dinero. Don’t believe me? Just think about it for a second……according to the FCRA (Fair Credit Reporting Act) This is the Federal law that the credit bureaus have to abide by! The FCRA outlines that a consumer reporting agency (aka credit bureau) has 30 days to perform an investigation and send you a response with their findings. Now that right there is 30 days, but let’s not forget the time it takes for the snail mail to get there. Let’s just say a week to get there and a week for it to get back to you that’s already 1.5 months. Now you might be thinking, well can’t I just use the online dispute thing? You absolutely can, but I wouldn’t reccomend it and this is why. The FCRA recognizes mail as a form of communication and it’s also the best way that you can time stamp when your dispute letter was recieved with a tracking number. You want to properly track all of this information because if the credit bureaus start ignoring you or decide to not fix blatantly damaging errors on your report you can take all of this information to a consumer attorney and sue them in federal court for FCRA non compliance. You may need to go back and forth the credit bureaus a couple times but that’s another article for another day. Just know that it may take 1-2 months to start seeing some results. So it’s best to get started now!
Now, If you fall into the boat of someone who waited until just now to start fixing your credit after getting recently getting denied for a mortage or an auto loan don’t stress it. It just means that you need to do a little work to get back into the game. So here’s a couple things you can do to start getting back on track.
⦁ Get a copy of your credit reports
⦁ Dispute Innacurate Negative Information (Send it via mail)
⦁ Pay Down Any Credit Cards with high utilization – Get it down to 15% just this alone will start shooting your credit scores up!
⦁ Start rebuilding your credit
⦁ Do this over the next 3-6 months
⦁ Don’t plan on quitting your job, if you’re applying for a home loan banks like to see stability. If for some unfortunate reason you were let go from your employee, even then don’t stress it. Try to find another job, ideally a higher paying one and keep working on your credit. If the bank brings up the job loss just explain what the situation was and show that you found a new employer with higher pay.
⦁ And start the process again, this time you’d be surprised at how many doors open up for you. Along with amazingly low interest rates!