Home Mortgage Refinance Loan: Your FICO Score & Mortgage Refinancing

Your FICO Credit score is used by mortgage companies to determine how much of a risk you are for a home mortgage refinance loan. The lower your score, the more you will pay when mortgage refinancing. There are ways to improve your credit before applying and save money on your home mortgage refinance loan. Here are tips to help you polish your FICO score and qualify for a better mortgage refinancing interest rate.FICO stands for “Fair Isaac Corporation,” named for the company that calculates your score. Fair Isaac evaluates the contents of your credit reports and assigns a numerical value to your credit worthiness. Because there are three companies that maintain records, you will have three FICO scores, one for each credit agency. Before you consider mortgage refinancing it is important to request credit reports from each credit reporting agency and carefully review your records for errors.Any adverse information found in your credit reports will damage your FICO scores. Other factors that affect your FICO score include the length of time you have been using credit, the amount of available credit vs. your debts, negative credit information in your file, collections, any write-offs or bad debt. If you find mistakes in your credit history it is important to dispute the error and allow enough time for the correction to raise your FICO score before applying for a home mortgage refinance loan.How to Improve Your FICO Score before Mortgage RefinancingImproving your credit score takes time, there is no quick fix; however, there are steps you can take to raise your score. First, make sure you are paying all of your bills on time as 35% of your FICO score is based on your payment history. Fair Isaac also bases 30% of your FICO score on the amount of your debts and your available credit limit. The remaining factors include 15% based on the length of your credit history, 10% on the amount of recent inquires, and 10% on the type of credit accounts you use.The items you can control prior to mortgage refinancing include paying your bills on time, maintaining low balances on your credit cards, and paying off negative information found in your credit reports. The more time you have to devote to improving your credit score, the more you can boost your FICO Score. If you are a homeowner with poor credit you want to devote at least six months to improving your FICO score before applying for a home mortgage refinance loan. You can learn more about your credit and how it affects mortgage refinancing by registering for a free mortgage tutorial.