How to improve credit score?

Question

I would like to raise my credit score a little and was thinking of opening up another credit card to help. Will it help me, and will one help more than another? Was thinking of getting an American Express. Any thoughts on this? Thank you.

Glenn Stallings · Answer

Thank you all for the information.

Jon Kelly · Answer

@Glenn Stallings I'd speak with any bank/lender you have a relationship with about your credit situation. Almost all of them will have a free service to review your credit and provide tips to improve it. You may get some helpful tips here but there are many variables in play and nobody will now your complete credit situation...

Nick Belsky · Answer

@Glenn Stallings

Credit Karma is a great way to "see" how changing things in your profile may effect your score.  Now... let's be clear about Credit Karma.  The scores they show you are crap.  They are not representative of what you will see when your credit is pulled for a mortgage.  Mortgages use a special FICO calculation that is not represented on Credit Karma or any other major credit card monthly score monitoring.  Credit Karma has the simulator built in and is very accurate when it comes to the amount of impact adding cards, paying off a loan or credit card, etc... but not for the score itself.

Credit Karma is also an excellent way to see what is on your reports, line by line.

One thing to consider here.  If you are looking to increase your credit line on an existing card, this will inherently reduce your "credit utilization ratio".  Between 1-9.99% on each Credit Card is optimal, not 1-9.99% on the aggregate! If you apply for a new card, you have two sides to consider.  The new credit line will also help your credit utilization ratio BUT it will decrease your average length of credit as it is a new card that will have ZERO time on it.  I have seen many folks get this wrong and their scores actually go down, not up.  Average length of credit is piece of the pie too!

Cheers!

Nick Belsky

Randy Bloch · Answer

Do you understand why your credit score is low? I would download credit karma app on your phone.  Analyze this and then Decide how to improve it.  Type of credit card won’t matter....but the larger credit limits you can get the better as it decrease your credit utilization.  You could also just ask your current credit card to increase your limits and accomplish the same.   Certain things matter a lot more than others...download the app and learn.