Credit Sore

You know, I never understood just how important credit score was until I got into real estate investing. A credit score gives the bank their own profile of anyone and lets them know whether a person is good business or not.

I’ve been with Lexington Law Firm for I think a year now, and they’ve been very helpful in getting many things off my credit report and educating me on how to intelligently build good credit. The only negatives remaining on my credit report are the bank’s “charge offs” from late mortgage payments and credit card accounts that were closed because I couldn’t keep up with payments. These seem to be the most difficult to get off, and both Chase and Bank of America have been complete asses about taking it off my report when asked to do so by Lexington Law Firm. The rule is that, even though the account was paid off, the “negatives” (as they are called) can stay on your credit report for 7 years. For an investor, seven years is an eternity. One can build a mini-real estate empire in seven years, hell I’m trying to do it in six!

I decided to join up with a site called Credit Karma. They give a pretty good estimate of what one’s credit score is (once they get the information needed), and it’s 100% free. So I gave them my info and my unofficial credit score is 641. That’s 641 out of a possible 850. So, in a bank’s mind, I’m like a C student. I called Lexington Law Firm to see if they had any other strategies to get those negatives off my report but they didn’t give me very good answers. They plan to keep sending these challenge letters, which ask the companies to prove that I owe a certain amount of money. The challenge letters haven’t worked yet and I don’t think they’re gonna work in the future. Meanwhile, I’ve been paying these niggas $90 a month to send letters that go nowhere. I’m grateful for what Lexington has done but I think it’s time to move on from them. Through them I’ve been able to get my credit score up almost 100 points from where it was last year, but I can’t afford to continue paying them without seeing some new results. They haven’t taken a new negative off this entire year!

Through my two secured credit cards and my good business practices, I should have a steady credit score from now on. So long as the positives outweigh the negatives, everything will be fine. A 641 score will be enough to qualify for a loan through brokers like Patrick Boston. They have access to all the lenders that are willing to work with those that have lower credit scores. The issue with them is that they usually charge a higher interest rate, which is fine with me. The current interest rate is 3.60%. If they charge me an interest rate of, let’s say 6.00%, it would be the lowest interest rate out of all my properties! If I had a great credit score like 790 or something, I would have banks calling me begging to do business with them. If I didn’t have the money for a down-payment, they would FIND a way to make it work. That’s how important a credit score is. It can turn banks into bitches or it can make you a bitch to the banks.