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What is impacting my FICO Credit Score?

Here are the two reason that could impact your credit score.

  1. You recently opened a new credit account.
  2. You’ve recently been looking for credit.

1) Recently opened a new credit account.
Your FICO score considers how recently you opened a new credit account. People who recently opened a new credit account are slightly more likely to miss future payments than those who have not.

How to Avoid ? Avoid opening more credit accounts at this time and as a general rule, if you don’t need or plan to use credit, don’t apply for it

2) Recently been looking for credit.

Each time you apply for credit a credit inquiry is added to your credit report. Your credit report shows recent credit inquiries, which indicates that you’ve recently been seeking credit. People who are actively seeking credit pose more of a risk to lenders than those who are not. Your FICO score was lowered due to the number of credit inquiries performed within the last 12 months. Your FICO score will consider these recent inquiries less as time passes, provided no new inquiries are added.

Note that your FICO score usually identifies when you are rate shopping for a mortgage, auto loan or student loan and treats those multiple inquiries as a single inquiry.

How to Avoid ? Keep this in mind: As a general rule, if you don’t need or plan to use credit, don’t apply for it.