Everyone knows that having good credit is a wonderful thing to have, especially in this day and time, and everyone also knows that having the black marks of bad credit against you will give you a lot of needless headaches and worry. So why is it such a bad thing when an individual does not have any credit at all? It seems like having no credit would be a good thing, especially since it isn’t like you have any bad credit on your credit report…right? … Wrong!
Have you come to the point in your life where you are comfortable with your lifestyle, and you feel like you have plenty of extra money coming in each month that you think you should be able to afford a new car payment? Or, perhaps you are thinking about buying that new dream home for your family that you have dreamed about being able to buy for so many years. Then, all of the sudden you come to find out, that there is something that is standing in the way of being able to do either of these things.
Having no credit at all is normally just as frustrating as having bad credit can be. The reason for this is, a bank or a lending institution, a credit card company, automobile dealership, mortgage company, or any other type of business that you are trying to borrow money from will want to be able to see a past credit history of some type. If these companies are able to see a good credit history on your credit report, then they are able to use your credit information to determine the bill paying practices that you have kept, and are keeping.
If you have bad credit, they can look at your credit report and determine what has caused your credit to be bad. Sometimes a person might have had a good credit history, then all of the sudden, an unexpected accident of some sort might have occurred. If lenders are able to see that you had good bill paying practices up until this point, then sometimes your loan can get approved under these circumstances.
If you have no credit at all, there is absolutely no way that any type of lending institution or company will have any type of information that they can base a determination on previous bill paying practices. It is important for them to be able to determine what level of risk a client will, or will not be.
The way various companies can determine someone’s past credit history and bill-paying practices is by looking at your FICO score. The FICO score is simply a means of being able to condense the credit information that is supplied on the credit report into a more easily understood three-digit number. These numbers can range anywhere between the numbers of 300 and 850. A score that is above 750 is considered to be excellent, and a score that is less than 620 is considered to be risky.
There are several different factors that are used in the formula to calculate a persons FICO score. • 35% – determined by your past payment history • 30% – determined by the current amount of money you still owe lenders • 15% – determined by how long your credit history is • 10% – determined by the amount of credit accounts that are new, that you have either opened, or applied for • 10% – determined by a mix of the credit accounts that you currently have, such as credit cards, mortgages, etc.
