Credit Reports - What You Need To Know - 1

As soon as you get involved in real estate you are going to want to start borrowing money.

Your ability to borrow money will have a direct relationship to how well you do, or how fast you can grow your real estate business.

Your FICO score will have a direct effect on your ability to borrow money and how much you pay so you need to understand a few things about how it works.

FICO scores range from 350-850:

• 780 above = A+


• 720 - 779 = A-


• 680 - 719 = B


• 620 - 679= C


• 550 - 619 = D


• 549 below = F

The higher your score the better.

If you already have some credit the first thing you need to do is get a copy of your credit report from the top 3 credit reporting agencies.

Once you get your credit report then check for any bad marks on your credit, if you have any write and ask for them to be removed.

The credit reporting agency will send you a form, fill it out and send it back in.

My experience has been that they will remove about 50% of the items you fill out forms for.

If they refuse to remove an item and it really should not be there then write a letter and complain.

Wells Fargo Bank turned me in as having a foreclosure on my credit report. I sent in the form and the credit reporting agencies contacted Wells Fargo Bank who refused to remove it.

I then contacted Wells Fargo Bank, and inquired about this. They were unable to find any information about a foreclosure on my in their system. So their attitude was if I couldn’t prove that I didn’t do it then they would not remove it.

I don’t want to rag on Wells Fargo Bank because they have helped me out a lot of times, but any bank has a certain percentage of people working for them who are not that smart. I happen to hit several of them with this problem.

I ended up having an attorney write Wells Fargo Bank telling them how big of a mistake they were making by not removing this, and also reminding them how they could be liable for damages.

It finally got pushed up to someone smart enough to make the right decision and they agreed that it should be removed since it was an error.

But I had to make 3 trips to Wells Fargo Bank branches, and about 15 phone calls.