For most of us, credit scores are something we understand at a high level but don’t know exactly how they work or their specific impact on our mortgages. Here are a few things you may not have known:

• Many free credit score offers do not provide you with your actual FICO credit score. You can access your actual score here, for a fee.
• Anything below like 600 or so is quite bad, above 740 is good, and in between are increments of 20. Where you land impacts your borrowing costs.
• You can impact your score positively or negatively by doing things like paying off revolving accounts (good), closing old accounts (bad), opening new accounts or making large purchases on credit (bad), etc
• Its generally a good idea for married couples to try and keep their credit separate
• There are services that offer credit repair for a reasonable fee, which can be well worth the cost if you are in that middle range. Thank you to Randi at North Shore Advisory for much of this information, they provide credit repair services

Randi Tomchin
Business Development and Credit Specialist
North Shore Advisory, Inc.

P: 914-524-8300 x109
F: 914-524-5014
randi@northshoreadvisory.com