It's time to check out your credit score if you consider to buy a home in Cleveland OH or anywhere in the United States in few months, so you can still benefit from Home buyers tax credit.
Monitoring and reviewing your credit reports is a good idea for everyone. According to Equifax,
- more than 27 million Americans have been victims of identity theft in the last five years
- only this year about 500,000 people will be robbed by identity thievs
- there is likely to be a "mass victimization" of the consumers within the next two years
- it may take six months to two years to recover from identity theft.
Even if you get pre-approved by the mortgage lender and If you are going to buy a house within next few months, it might be wise to monitor your credit in order to avoid unwilling surprises.
Consumers are entitled to receive one free credit report every 12 months from each of the nationwide consumer credit reporting companies – Equifax, Experian and TransUnion. Free credit report can be requested through the website https://www.annualcreditreport.com/cra/index.jsp.
The addresses for the credit reporting agencies are listed below:
Equifax
P.O. Box 740256
Atlanta, Georgia 30374
Experian
P.O. Box 9554
Allen, Texas 75013
TransUnion
P.O. Box 6790
Fullerton, CA 92834
Svetlana - Good post. I found out I had a lot of fraudelent charges on my credit cards, but it took me almost a year to discover them as they were in small amounts. It's important to match your receipts to every charge and question every charge that looks suspicious. Sometimes identity thieves test the waters with smaller charges and if you don't notice, they then get bold. A good friend was also victimized in this way, but the charges were much higher and affected her husband's credit score.
Thanks for reminding everyone Svetlana,I just had a client who wanted to refi. He had been waited to the last moment on these rates. I pulled his credit and found a mistaken collection on his credit that brought his FICO score down significantly.(which greatly affect the rate I can quote.) He will get this fixed, but it will take at least 30 days to remove and he runs the risk of rates increasing.
Gail - thanks for commenting and sorry for your and your friend's experience. We live in a world where we can not afford not to be controlling. You gave me a good idea to double check all small charges on credit cards and automated payments.
Greg - what a frustration for your client and for you! I hope, rates will stay the same for a while, so you will have an opportunity to get your client's loan refinanced on an excellent term. Thanks for reading and commenting here!