Written By: Linda Ferrari, President of Credit Resource Corporation, a consulting firm with offices in Los Angeles and Orange County, California. They work with Lenders, Mortgage Brokers and Realtors across the nation to help borrowers with less than perfect credit scores increase their chances for loan approval. Please feel free to browse CRC’s site at www.CreditResourceCorp.com to access some very helpful tips on improving and managing credit scores. Hire Linda to speak at your next event - MortgageSpeakersBureau.com.
As mortgage professionals, we wage the battle for credit education and improvement on several fronts. Initially, we seek to make our clients aware of the fact that the credit scores and reports hold the key to all of their loan prospects-to their financial freedom and opportunity to live the American Dream. We understand the system and we know how we can benefit from taking the smartest steps. If we do our job well for our clients, we educate them on the factors that make up the score, ways to navigate the system, and how to get good credit and keep it. That's an important job we fulfill, and it's pretty gratifying. Unfortunately, it's just not enough. The success we enjoy when our clients become "credit aware" can be short lived. Once they understand the importance of good credit, we now must fight an even more significant battle-the battle against misinformation.
We have often heard that "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing." Yes, we might have done our job of making our clients and prospects aware of the significance of their credit score and the profound benefits that good scores bring, but we must never forget the fact that they can be pummeled with information by a multitude of questionable sources. It seems everywhere you look, some program or Web site offers credit fixes, offers and deals that make it seem so easy to consolidate debt or, worse, get "easy credit" to buy the things you need. They offer "free credit analysis"-all which will, most likely, take our seemingly credit-aware clients down a path of destruction, undoing much of our hard work.
How can we help our clients know how to filter the bad information from the good? How can we satisfy their intellects when we tell them that, even if they read it in the paper, it's not necessarily true? Sometimes, it's not that easy. Sometimes, bad advice in the credit world can make complete sense, but still be totally wrong. I refer to these bad recommendations as "credit myths," and they run rampant-especially in the online space.
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