Did you know that you can actually perform a simple task in the next 5 minutes that could boost your
credit score by an additional 30 points? I bet you didn't realize that you could do this without having
to jump through hoops on the phone and without having to wait another 6 months. If this sounds remotely
interesting to you, then read on.
One of the coolest things that consumers now have complete control over in the age of fast
credit repair is the fact that they can prohibit the sharing of information by
credit affiliates. This is any information about you that would inevitably be used for marketing
purposes. This means essentially, that you can stop some of those unsolicited credit card offers that
you see in the mail. You can do this by going to the Opt Out Pre Screen website to fill out an
electronic form to stop these offers from ever reaching you.
How does this actually help your credit you might ask? There is a really enlightening explanation for
this that I'll cover here. Many times loan officers will deny loan programs to otherwise worthy borrowers
because they fall short; many times the borrower will be short a mere 10 or even 5 FICO points and will
consequently be rejected for loan approval because they barely missed the mathematical range!
Flashback to about 8 years ago when I had recently graduated from college in Business Information
Systems; I had applied for a mortgage when my credit was a bit on the poor side. I believe my score was
around 500 at the time, and the lending company I had contacted for the initial loan application didn't
even call me back, ever! I was waiting for 2 weeks wondering what had happened and if I needed to re-mail
my loan application to them. Another week went by and still no phone call! I literally was stopped in my
tracks time after time, application after application with no such luck after multiple attempts with
different loan companies.
Now flash forward to 2007, whenever I visit mortgage companies working with real estate investors, I
see those same type of applications heaped together, haphazardly in a pile on the floor or in some loan
officer's ignored file cabinet somewhere. I decided a few years ago that I wanted to make sure that there
was an opportunity for those people who ended up in that pile like I did, if they wanted to and could use
the information to re-build their credit effectively, that there would be real hope for them.
I learned long ago via the hard way that it doesn't take 7 years as I'd previously thought to restore
my credit. I had thought that I needed to wait 7 years until everything bad would drop off, not use any
credit during that time, and then slowly start re-building my credit lines by the end of the 7 year
period (this is really what I thought!). This is one way of doing it I suppose but that method turns out
to be a 9 year plan at best to see real results. Think that's too long to wait to get your credit back up
to par? Well, so do I and fortunately I have learned that if you don't want to wait that long than
there's a much quicker way to go about building your credit in a short amount of time.
What I would suggest is that if you are in a hurry to get a loan, you can use the online Opt Out
option and utilize their 5 year electronic Optout if you need to repull or re-score your credit with a
current lender to quickly give your credit score a high octane boost. There is also a permanent option
found on their site and if you're not under any time constraints, you can print this out, sign it and
mail it in to be permanently taken off the credit card offer solicitation list. Although the permanent
Optout option takes longer to submit since it's not electronic, it provides the greatest boost to your
credit score in a relatively short amount of time.
The 5 year and permanent Optout options will not stop any affiliate bank offers from reaching your
mailbox, however, since they are marketed through institutions that you are already doing business with
outside of the credit bureaus. For example, if you have an account through Bank of America, and do the
Optout, BOA or any of their financial affiliates will still be able to send you offers for their credit
cards since you do business with them.
So what does the Optout actually do for you? A lot actually.. The Optout will prevent all credit
bureaus from being able to sell your information to other credit card companies which is where the
majority of these offers originate from in the first place. It will also greatly reduces identity theft
since it eliminates a lot of unwanted mail from floating around with your personal information on it.
One of the greatest things the Optout does that most people don't realize, even though it says on
their website that "these inquiries from the credit bureaus do not hurt your credit", which is true; yet
in about 60% of cases, this Optout will actually boost the client's credit score anywhere from 5-30
points! This is why I love to tell loan officers about this, because if they have a client who is only a
couple points away from a program, they can opt them out (with the client's permission) or have the
client opt themselves out with the website, wait about 10 business days, repull credit and in about 60%
of the cases they'll get an immediate boost to their credit score.
By utilizing this simple tip, I've been able to help dozens of investors recently to boost their
credit score into a qualified range enough to get them the loans they wanted and really needed to make
their investment vehicle worthwhile. For the life of the loan, this locks many of them into a much lower
rate that literally will save them many thousands of dollars from the loan they would've received (or not
received) had they not boosted their credit score within the 2 or 3 week period before their credit was
re-pulled.
Oh, how I wish I would have known about this a few years ago when I finally qualified for my first
investment property! How about 8 years ago when my first loan application ended up in a chaotic pile
somewhere on some indifferent loan officer's desk. Since that time, I vowed to continue doing more
research with regards to fast credit repair strategies to uncover all the "Easter Eggs" I could find and compile
into a book dedicated to this subject. Hopefully this quick credit boosting tip listed here will help
you to qualify for that elusive loan you've been applying for that's almost within your grasp and
enable you to reach your financial goals for the New Year and beyond.
