Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Credit repair remove negative items

Most people know that most creditors use credit report agencies for obtaining information on a person when they have applied for any type of financing. However, there are actually two levels of credit reporting agencies. There are three major repositories of credit and background information. They are Equifax, Experian and TransUnion. When someone obtains credit, the creditor reports the payment history to these repositories. This is usually done monthly but may be done on an irregular basis. These repositories simply accept the information as it comes in electronically and they DO NOT check the accuracy of the information.

This is where the problem starts to often the information received is never check of accuracy. This leads to wrong or misreported information affecting your credit score. Examples may be collections that have been paid off but never updated or wrong social security numbers added to your reports. Now with that being said the question is how do you repair the damage that has been done?

The first thing you need to do is get a FREE copy of your credit. You can get them once a year for the CRA’s
(Credit reporting agencies), or anytime you have been denied credit. Then you need to go over every line of your reports and look for the errors (and there will be errors). Once you have identified the problem you need to tackle it head on and dispute the item. The only way you do the effectively is to writhe a letter and dispute the error. You must do this in writing and never over the internet. If you try to dispute the information on the internet most of the time nothing will happen. The main thing that they will not tell you is that it is there responsibility to have accurate information and they need to investigate it and prove this information is accurate if they cannot do this in a timely manner (30 days) they must remove it from your credit report.

Simply put, they keep a record of who has given you credit, when they gave you credit, how much credit you are given and whether or not you paid it back on time. When you want to obtain credit cards, loans, financing for a car or home, leases, apartments and sometimes even employment, the lender or bank will check your credit to see your financial history.Credit Bureaus are paid by the people who request your credit file.Credit Bureaus have no legal power over you. Banks, police or the government does not run them; so don't be intimidated by them. They are the Credit Bureaus because they own large computer systems capable of storing credit information on everyone in the United States. However, because of the tremendous amounts of information on their computers, their method of storing information is very basic and ridden with many errors. Since the bureaus have made so many errors in the past, all Federal Laws regarding credit information are very much in your favor.The Major Credit BureausEXPERIANP.O. Box 2002Allen, TX 75013(888) 397-3742experian.com
Trans Union CorporationP.O. Box 1000Chester, PA 19022(800) 888-4213transunion.com
Equifax, Inc.P.O. Box 740241Atlanta, GA 30374(800) 685-1111

Monday, July 2, 2007

Reverse Mortgage: Are They Right For You?

Reverse Mortgage: Are They Right For You?
A "reverse" mortgage is a loan against your home that you do not have to pay back for as long as you live there. With a reverse mortgage, you can turn the value of your home into cash without having to move or to repay the loan each month. The cash you get from a reverse mortgage can be paid to you in several ways:
all at once, in a single lump sum of cash;
as a regular monthly cash advance;
as a "credit line" account that lets you decide when and how much of your available cash is paid to you; or
a combination of these payment methods.
No matter how this loan is paid out to you, you typically don't have to pay anything back until you die, sell your home, or permanently move out of your home. To be eligible for most reverse mortgages, you must own your home and be 62 years of age or older.
Other Home Loans
To qualify for most loans, the lender checks your income to see how much you can afford to pay back each month. But with a reverse mortgage, you don't have to make monthly repayments. So you don't need a minimum amount of income to qualify for a reverse mortgage. You could have no income and still be able to get a reverse mortgage.
With most home loans, you could lose your home if you don't make your monthly payments. But with a reverse mortgage, there aren't any monthly repayments to make. So you can't lose your home by not making them. Most reverse mortgages require no repayment for as long as you — or any co-owner(s) — live in the home. So they differ from other home loans in these important ways:
you don't need an income to qualify for a reverse mortgage; and
you don't have to make monthly repayments on a reverse mortgage.
"Conventional " Mortgages
You can see how a reverse mortgage works by comparing it to a "conventional" mortgage — the kind you use to buy a home. Both types of mortgages create debt against your home. And both affect how much equity or ownership value you have in your home. But they do so in opposite ways.
"Debt" is the amount of money you owe a lender. It includes cash advances made to you or for your benefit, plus interest. "Home equity" means the value of your home (what it would sell for) minus any debt against it. For example, if your home is worth $3000,000 and you still owe $120,000 on your mortgage, your home equity is $180,000.
Falling Debt, Rising Equity
When you purchased your home, you probably made a down payment and borrowed the rest of the money you needed to buy it. Then you paid back your traditional "conventional" mortgage loan every month over many years. During that time:
debt decreased; and
home equity increased.
As you made each repayment, the amount you owed (your debt or "loan balance") grew smaller. But your ownership value (your "equity") grew larger. If you eventually made a final mortgage payment, you then owed nothing, and your home equity equaled the value of your home. In short, your conventional mortgage was a "falling debt, rising equity" type of deal.
Rising Debt, Falling Equity
Reverse mortgages have a different purpose than conventional mortgages do. With a conventional mortgage, you use your income to repay debt, and this builds up equity in your home. But with a reverse mortgage, you are taking the equity out in cash. So with a reverse mortgage:
debt increases; and
home equity decreases.
It's just the opposite, or reverse, of a conventional mortgage. With a reverse mortgage, the lender sends you cash, and you make no repayments. So the amount you owe (your debt) gets larger as you get more and more cash and more interest is added to your loan balance. As your debt grows, your equity shrinks, unless your home's value is growing at a high rate.
In short, a reverse mortgage is a "rising debt, falling equity" type of deal. But that is exactly what informed reverse mortgage borrowers want: to "spend down" their home equity while they live in their homes, without having to make monthly loan repayments.
Exception!Reverse mortgages don't always have rising debt and falling equity. If a home's value grows rapidly, your equity could increase over time. Or, if you only get one loan advance and no interest is charged on it, your debt would never change. So your equity would grow as your home's value increases. But most home values don't grow at consistently high rates, and interest is charged on most mortgages. So the majority of reverse mortgages end up being "rising debt, falling equity" loans