We applied for a simple equity line on our house. We got a letter from the bank on Saturday noting that my credit report showed a 30 day late pay. A little further investigation revealed that the same bank reported the late pay on an account with automatic payments. Whoops, their mistake and it is being taken care of. The result? An 80 point drop in my credit score since last check! AnnualCreditReport.com give you the chance to check your credit from Experian, TransUnion and Equifax. You have to pay a little extra for your score (you are entitled to your report only for free once a year from each agency). I choose one every three months rather than all three at once. If one is wrong, it is likely that all are wrong.Portland Real Estate Blog
Be careful with those HELOCs. Don’t they all by default (no pun intended) have adjustable rates? And apparently they can adjust very rapidly and they have fewer protections from adjustment when compared to ARMs.
THey are completey different vehickles. They are tied to the Prime rate and only adjust when it does.
Charles, it’s amazing what a 30 day late of large credit card balance can do to a score. I helped a client improve their score in 1 month by paying down their cards to $200 each. They saw an increase from a 640 to a 705. this was only due to high card balances.