credit report - Credit Repair: Should You Do It Yourself?

Recently a friend of mine was worried about his credit score. He asked me if I thought he should hire a professional to do credit repair for him. I told him he could go ahead and do that if he wanted, but I wouldn't do it if I were in his place. I suppose it's because I had a troublesome experience with one credit repair firm. I was paying them for months and they kept telling me over and over that their team of lawyers was going to reach a settlement with the credit reporting agencies and clear up my credit report. Eventually they did clear up a lot of negative items, but thinking back on it, I may have done just as good a job on my own. It's hard to say, of course. But I think that before you pay for credit repair, you should go ahead and try it on your own first. To me, that makes the best financial sense. What you should do is get a copy of your credit report from each of the three major US credit reporting agencies--Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. You can get a free report from each of them once every 12 months. That's the truth--the law says so. You can order your free report from all three agencies at the website www.annualcreditreport.com. By the way, I suggest that you do not sign up at www.freecreditreport.com! That is a completely different site and its name is misleading, it does offer a free trial but if you forget to opt out, you may end up paying a fee. I'm not calling it a scam, I suppose they do offer legitimate services, but I think they have gone about it the wrong way by using such a misleading website name to get people to sign up for a paid service. All right, back to our topic. Once you have your credit reports, go over them carefully. Note down the negative items you wish to dispute--personally, I would dispute all of them, even the ones you recognize. Call the credit reporting agencies, or write them dispute letters. Do not make any false statements in your communications! In fact, don't even claim that an account isn't yours. Just tell them you want the account verified, and if that is not possible, then removed from your report. Disputing items will not cost you anything except time, and I suppose the cost of some phone calls or postage stamps. That is certainly less than what you would have to pay a credit repair firm. Learn about how to protect yourself from credit repair scams. Get more information and tips at http://creditrepairinsider.info Article Source:http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Joseph_Ducat credit report - Advantages of Buying a Home After Bankruptcy After Bankruptcy is discharged Immediately after bankruptcy is discharged your credit score is bottom low. What you need to do is start preparing for applying by increasing your credit score as much as possible. To do so, you need to meet all your payments on time, and start building some credit. Small steps to improve your credit score can be taken safely. Get a secured credit card and start using it to buy what you would otherwise pay in cash. The Credit Card issuer will inform credit agencies of your timely payments and this will increase your credit score. You can then request small personal loans or get an unsecured credit card to keep improving your credit score. Make sure to pay your balances in full and never miss payments. Once some months have passed after your bankruptcy has been discharged, you'll be able to apply for a home loan. Usually after 6 months since the discharge, lenders won't object your application due to your past bankruptcy. If your income is good enough, you'll surely get approved and if you get declined you can always resort to saving some money in order to offer down payment or asking someone to act as a co-signer in order to guarantee approval. Home Ownership Advantages Becoming a home owner will contribute to recovering from bankruptcy. This financial transaction has many advantages, not only will you become the owner of your home, but the home equity loans will really contribute to improving your credit score and building a clean credit history. Bankruptcy will remain in your credit report for many years. Thus, in order to restore your ability to get finance (especially unsecured loans and credit cards), you need to raise your credit score and show no blemishes following your bankruptcy in your credit report history. Raising your Credit Score and Improving Credit History Your rank will have to travel a long way till it reaches a Good Credit Score tag again. You've already made the first steps, and your monthly mortgage loan payments will do the next. A continual history of timely payments on your home loan will be reported by your lender to credit agencies and your credit score improvement process will be given a boost. Other Benefits Owning your home will also let you apply for home equity loans in the future. Home equity can be built either by repaying your mortgage or by an increase in the value of your property. When this happens, you'll be able to request a loan and secure it with the property's equity which will reduce not only the requisites you'll have to meet but also the interest rate you'll have to pay saving you thousands of dollars.