Credit Report Free

The part of your credit report that a creditor concentrates most closely on is the credit accounts section. Ideally you want a credit report free of late or incomplete payments. The recency of any problem is important, so a late payment three years ago isn't as significant as a late payment three months ago. A creditor also notes the lateness of a payment and 90 days is considered more serious than 60 or 30 days late.

The next thing a creditor looks at, is your overall debt and how it's spread among your accounts. He wants to see a credit report free of high overall debt and low balances in each account. A lender also looks at the number of accounts, because even if the amounts owed are small, there's the potential for a sudden increase in debt. Additionally, it's more favorable if the accounts are a mixture of credit types. For instance, creditors would want to see a car loan, a mortgage and a credit card account, instead of only three credit card accounts.

When you get your credit report free, you should note how far back your credit record goes. Because after a lender reviews how you've managed your debts, he'll next check how long you've done so. Since most items go back no more than 7 years, that's mainly the time period that he's concerned with. But bankruptcies and a few special cases can be reported for 10 years or longer. Besides the length of your credit history a creditor will also check for recent new accounts. If there's several new accounts opened, he sees this as a negative sign of possible credit overextension.

Finally, a creditor will want to know if you have a credit report free of civil actions taken against you, such as judgments or liens. These are considered serious negatives and if the statute of limitations runs longer than seven years they can continue to be reported for the length of the statute.