Sunday, April 20, 2008

Happy Numbers

Last summer, in a moment of weakness, I signed up for one of those credit secure programs. The ones that send you a detailed credit report and then send you regular updates. Two month's later I realized how much they were charging a month ($11) and that I'd forgotten to cancel my subscription. I called right away and got things taken care of.

My Experian and Equifax scores were respectable, but not amazing. They were in the upper 600's and Transunion came in mid 700's. Fast forward nine months. Gameboy and I are ready to buy a home and we go to get pre-approval/good faith estimate* from a lender. We've been headed here for a few months and honestly I've been anxious about my credit score. Since I knew I would be having my credit pulled we decided not to pull them ourselves because we didn't want a possible ding or to use up our free pulls. I didn't think my score would have gone down, but in general I'm a worrier.

So Friday we're sitting with the loan officer giving him all sorts of information. He types away, does some clicking, and then tells me my current credit score.

Transunion: 740's
Experian: 760's
Equifax: 790's

Transunion was down 4 points, Equifax was up 69 points, and Experian was up 110 points. I don't know what's going on with Transunion, but I'm guessing the other two increases are due to me starting repayment (and overpaying) on my student loans which were in deferment last time my credit was pulled.

When we buy a house I know the numbers will fall. In the mean time is nice to have another benefit from working so hard over the past few months.

*The pre-approval says how much money they are willing to lend us. The good faith estimate outlines fee's and costs associated with the mortgage.

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