Seven Steps To A Credit Score Makeover

You can mitigate the effect of tighter mortgage underwriting standards by improving your credit report profile and, as a result, your credit score.
Just don't expect that your knee-jerk reaction to tighter money will generate overnight success. Chances are, you didn't get all those credit report blemishes during a single credit buying binge.
And, if you are like many consumers, you don't even know what you are up against.
BankRate.com recently found that 32 percent of Americans surveyed never check their credit reports and have no idea what shape it's in.
It's time to find out and do something about it.
Local lenders say the incidence of credit report knowledge is even higher when borrowers sit down to apply for home loans.
"Less than 10 percent have seen their report and among those who have, most of the reports are old, many are only from one bureau and so they don't have a complete picture," said Joel Spolin, president of Absolute Mortgage in Palo Alto, CA.
Your credit report is a sort of fiscal fitness report on your credit habits and the information it contains factors heavily into your credit score, a statistical analysis or numerical value placed on your credit behavior. Your credit score is commonly used to nay or yea your requests for credit and determine how much you'll pay for credit approved.
Here are seven starter steps to take toward improving your creditworthiness.
1. Get your credit report and look for errors.
These days getting a credit report should be the no-brainer first step toward improving your chances of landing credit at the best price possible.
Simply go online to AnnualCreditReport.com, the ONLY federally-sanctioned and cost-free service, and obtain a free credit report from Equifax, Experian and TransUnion. Given the year is more than half over, get your report from at least two companies, perhaps three. Next year set up your own credit monitoring service by getting a report from a different company every four months. Again, through AnnualCreditReport.com, each report is free.
Questions? Call (877) 322-8228 for details about your free credit report rights.
"We advise the client to get one report, pulled by a lender or broker and then use this report to share with other brokers so their credit is not getting constantly pulled," said Paul Garcia
A trusted lender or broker can pull your report for you and show you the ropes. Limiting the number of credit report pulls is also key. However, someone pulling your credit report can charge you a fee and the pull will show up on your credit report, though with little consequence.
Get your feet wet the first time around. Pull your own free credit report. Examine it for errors. That's the spirit of the law, to give you control and knowledge. Bring in a realty pro later, if necessary.
"It's good to get the report so the borrower knows what they are dealing with and to determine if any corrective actions need to be taken," said Garcia.
2. Check credit limits and attempt to keep balances evenly distributed across credit lines, advises attorney Edward Jamison, with the Los Angeles, CA Jamison Law Group he founded to specialize in consumer credit and identity theft.
3. Make sure your maximum credit limit is reported for each account.
"When no limit is reported, credit scoring software presumes the account is 'maxed out'." Jamison says credit scoring software scores more favorably when the balance is 50 percent or below, but too many open accounts with zero balances could lower the score with the assumption you could suddenly run up a lot of credit.
4. Keep some credit cards open. Close others.
Open credit cards with limited balances and good payment records raises scores, especially long-time credit cards. However, the accounts should be limited in number and well-managed.
"Closing credit card accounts can hurt your score unless the accounts were opened less than two years ago, and you have more six credit cards," says Jamison.
It's about striking a balance.
"Credit scoring software assumes that people who have had credit for a longer time are at less risk of defaulting on payments," Jamison said.
5. Where possible, get rid of late payments listed on the credit report.
Jamison says if your late payments are dated and you've been a good credit customers for some time creditors may, in good faith, adjust your statement.
"If you are a customer in good standing, the creditor may work with you," he said.
The effort isn't easy. A demanding, frustrated and rude approach will make it more difficult. The lender isn't required to remove dings for 7 to 10 years in some cases.
6. Pay off collection accounts and past due amounts. Payoffs and paying past due accounts start the clock running on how long the ding will remain on your report. In some cases the collection agency or creditor may remove the ding, says Jamison. Again, it's not easy.
"The consumer should contact the collector and request a letter explicitly stating their agreement to delete the account upon receipt or clearance of the payment," he said.
7. Likewise, whenever possible, seek to have charge-offs and liens that are less than two years old removed.
"Charge-offs and liens that are older than 24 months do not affect your credit score nearly as much as ones under 24 months," says Jamison.
"But if they're newer than 24 months, they can seriously damage your credit," revealing you as a more recent credit slacker.
Keep in mind, all efforts to improve your credit, other than correcting errors, are typically based on you being a mature credit consumer -- pay your bills on time, don't overload yourself with debt and get in touch with lenders at the first sign of trouble for workouts than can help save your credit or reduce the damage to your report and your credit score.

HOA Curb Appeal

Stopping and slowing vehicle traffic is something most homeowner associations must deal with. Parking lot curbs keep vehicles from damaging the landscaping. Speed bumps slow traffic to a safe speed. Historically, these devices have been made of concrete and asphalt. But exciting new technology offers environmentally kind alternatives.
GNR Technologies specializes in the development, manufacture and sale of recycled rubber products derived from tires. GNR provides high quality products for traffic safety and parking control. GNR has developed a number of products, including Park-ItTM parking curb and Easy RiderTM speed bumps which are of particular interest to HOAs.
Parking is universal throughout the world. The Park-It parking curb is 1/10 the weight of a standard concrete curb and will not warp, chip, crack or rot under normal use. The Park-It is highly visible, painted with glass beaded reflective paint, and designed for safety. There is now an effective alternative to the labor intensive and expensive concrete. For a side by side comparison of the benefits over concrete curbing, click here.
The Easy Rider speed bumps offer a safe and cost efficient solution to effective speed reduction. It is manufactured from 100 percent recycled tires. It is resistant to UV, moisture, oil and extreme temperature variations, and has a channeled bottom for water drainage. For a full color brochure of the product and options, click here.
Improve your HOA's curb appeal and check out these new products!

Coping with Higher Summer Energy Costs

Air conditioning is costing consumers more this summer.
The Energy Information Administration, the statistical division of the U.S. Department of Energy, predicts that the price of electricity will climb about 2.6 percent during 2007. Demand for electric power will grow about 1.5 percent during the year, which the EIA says is normal.
This means that if the typical consumer paid $150 for electricity to run central air conditioning in a 2,000 square-foot house in each of the summer months in 2006, for example, that bill will be $153.90 for June, July and August this year. That might not seem like a lot of money, but multiply that by the increase by the number of households in the United States and that means hundreds of millions of dollars.
These costs fall on low and moderate income homeowners the most. Diane-Louise Wormley, who oversees a program to improve Philadelphia neighborhoods, said that a key to making homeownership affordable for younger buyers is to make these older houses energy efficient so that "everything won't be going to the gas company."
Much of the housing stock in Philadelphia, Baltimore and other cities was built before 1950, when energy costs were low and insulation was not part of the construction industry's vocabulary. Neighborhood programs in those two cities include an energy assessment of houses to try to get heating and cooling costs down.
BASF, which built a "near-zero energy" house in Paterson, N.J., is bringing technology used to create that home to low and moderate income neighborhoods in other cities, according to Jack Armstrong, business manager for the German-based chemical company, who oversaw the project.
Armstrong said that a zero-energy home can be "cash-flow positive" to the homeowner from the "very first day," because while achieving this level of performance can add $45 to $90 in monthly mortgage payments, it can save $140 a month that the typical consumer was paying on utility bills "before the era of wildly fluctuating energy costs."
Wormley, Armstrong and others acknowledge that these solutions to energy costs and housing affordability are long-term, and will do little to help consumers deal with higher utility bills this summer.
Some recommendations from energy experts work better in some areas of the country than others. For example, in suburban and rural areas, nights tend to be cooler than in the cities of concrete and blacktop, so homeowners can open their windows after sunset and use a whole-house fan to bring cool air into the house rather than keeping the air conditioners cranked.
Some northern areas only need air conditioning a few days a year, while in Texas, half the average homeowner's summer electric costs are generated by it, according to the state's public utilities authority.
Some utility companies charge higher rates in the summer or begin tacking on additional charges to a customer's bill if he or she uses more than a certain number of kilowatt hours during a 30-day cycle.
The key is to find ways to stay comfortable while keeping costs down.
According to Ronnie Kweller of the nonprofit Alliance to Save Energy in Washington, there are plenty of ways to do so. One is to properly maintain the home's cooling system so that it operates as efficiently as possible. This means cleaning or replacing air conditioner filters monthly, or as needed. Some newer window units have a built-in warning system that reminds you when it is time to clean the filter. Outdoor and indoor air conditioner coils also must be kept clean. Accumulated dirt on the indoor coil is the most-common cause of inefficiency.
Keep your house closed tight in the daytime to keep unwanted heat and humidity out. If practical, ventilate at night either naturally or with fans. In addition, Kweller suggested that a dehumidifier shouldn't be operated at the same time as the air conditioner, since the dehumidifier will increase the cooling load and force the air conditioner to work harder.
Shifting energy-intensive tasks such as laundry and operating the dishwasher to off-peak energy demand hours will help increase electricity reliability during heat waves, Kweller said. If you are able to do so, don't do the dishes and laundry a little at a time. Full loads will reduce energy consumption.
When you do wash clothes and your machines are old and inefficient top-loaders, use cold water. Kweller said that doing so could save up to $63 a year and, for those worried about getting clothes clean, "detergents formulated for cold water get clothes just as clean." For increase dryer efficiency (and to reduce the chance of fire) clean the lint filter in your dryer after every load.
Keep lamps or TVs away from the air conditioner thermostat, she said, because heat they generate will cause your air conditioner to run longer, running up bills unnecessarily.
When you leave the room, shut off the lights. The heat these lights produce also can increase cooling costs, according to Kweller.