Credit Reporting by Mortgage Companies After Short Sales

POSTED BY: Mark F. Anderson | Credit Report, News

Credit Reporting by Mortgage Companies After Short Sales In recent years, thousands of California homeowners sold their homes in short sales. In a short sale, the borrower sells the home to a third party for an amount that falls short of the outstanding loan balance. An open question has been whether the bank or mortgage company may collect the balance of the account from the borrower (absent an agreement to waive the balance). On January 21, 2016, the California Supreme Court held that no deficiency results after a short sale of an owner occupied property of four units or less....

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Getting and Keeping a Good Credit Score Depends on Your Credit Reports

POSTED BY: Mark F. Anderson | Credit Score, News

Getting and Keeping a Good Credit Score Depends on Your Credit Reports Your credit scores depend on what is in your credit reports. Your credit reports have information on how you have used credit, how much credit you have available, how much credit you are using, whether you made payments when due, and whether any creditor has sent an account to a debt collector. Credit scores are numbers that designed to predict how likely you are to pay back a loan. The most basic and important actions you can take to get and keep a good credit score are as...

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Better Alternatives to Buying Credit Monitoring

POSTED BY: Mark F. Anderson | News

Better Alternatives to Buying Credit Monitoring The credit agencies are eager to sell you credit monitoring at about $20/month. Here are reasons not to buy it. It doesn’t prevent ID theft, it only tells you after the theft has been committed – the proverbial shutting the barn door after the horse has run away. If you are really threatened with identity theft, you can put a security freeze on your credit files that actually prevents the ID theft by locking out access from the credit reports. Credit monitoring is not a good value proposition. You can check your credit report...

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FICO Scores Used by Lenders are Now Available to Consumers

POSTED BY: Mark F. Anderson | Credit Score, News

FICO Scores Used by Lenders are Now Available to Consumers FICO announced it will make up to 18 variations of consumers’ FICO scores available for the first time. FICO publishes different scores based on the needs of the type of credit involved–car loans, mortgages, credit cards, etc. Before, FICO allowed consumers to see only their “base” FICO score at the firm’s subscription-based MyFICO.com site, or through the free FICO Score Open Access program used by some credit card issuers. Those scores are not the same scores used by lenders when they make credit decisions. Now, the company will offer up...

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Useful List of all Credit Reporting Agencies

POSTED BY: Mark F. Anderson | News

Useful List of all Credit Reporting Agencies Most people are familiar with Experian, Equifax and Trans Union, but there are many more credit reporting agencies (CRAs) that are unknown to most people. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has published a list of all the CRAs. The publication lists the CRAs that provide free personal consumer reports with their latest company name and report request information, information consumers may use to link to the Bureau’s original content. It also provides names of parent and subsidiary companies so readers can research company names in the Bureaus Consumer Complaint Database. The list has...

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