{"id":2785,"date":"2025-04-03T00:55:00","date_gmt":"2025-04-03T04:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beingbobblog.com\/?p=2785"},"modified":"2025-03-28T14:55:40","modified_gmt":"2025-03-28T18:55:40","slug":"what-makes-up-your-credit-score","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/beingbobblog.com\/happy-holidays\/what-makes-up-your-credit-score\/","title":{"rendered":"What makes up your credit score?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"article-content\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

When you buy a home, your credit score plays an essential role: It can impact what loans you\u2019re eligible for and the interest rate you get (which will affect your monthly payment costs).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But what determines your score? The exact elements depend on which scoring method you\u2019re looking at, and lenders often use FICO.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Generally speaking, credit scores range from 300 to 850 and are influenced by the following five factors:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  1. Payment History:<\/strong> <\/mark>Paying credit card dues and other monthly bills on time can help increase your credit score. It can hurt your score to be consistently late on payments or overdue on some accounts. This is usually the biggest chunk of your overall score (about 35%).<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. Credit Mix:<\/span><\/strong> Having a mix of credit types \u2014 auto loans, credit cards, mortgages \u2014 shows you have a wide range of experience managing debt. Only having one type of debt (or no debts) doesn\u2019t necessarily reflect as well. Typically, this is roughly 10% of your credit score.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. Credit Utilization<\/span><\/strong>:<\/strong> <\/span>Your credit utilization rate is how much of your credit lines you\u2019re currently using. Keeping your balances under 30% of credit limits will help your score the most. And this is likely the second most important number, at about 30% of your credit score.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  4. New<\/span><\/strong> Credit:<\/strong> <\/span>If you apply for a new credit account, it can decrease your score temporarily. It\u2019s best to avoid opening multiple new credit lines at once. Expect this to make up about 10% of your score.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  5. Length of Credit:<\/span><\/strong> The longer you\u2019ve had your credit cards and other accounts, the more it helps your credit score. This is why you shouldn\u2019t close a credit account just because you aren\u2019t using it. And this factor is about 15% of your credit score.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    Thinking of buying a home or refinancing? Stay on top of payments, keep your credit utilization low, and avoid new credit to help keep your score on the higher end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Reach out for more guidance around homebuying and homeownership.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    When you buy a home, your credit score plays an<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5,12,976,8,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2785","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all-posts-comments","category-events","category-life","category-stuff","category-technology"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","featured_image_urls":{"full":"","thumbnail":"","medium":"","medium_large":"","large":"","1536x1536":"","2048x2048":"","chromenews-featured":"","chromenews-large":"","chromenews-medium":""},"author_info":{"display_name":"Being BOB","author_link":"https:\/\/beingbobblog.com\/happy-holidays\/author\/admin\/"},"category_info":"All Posts & Comments<\/a> Events<\/a> Life<\/a> Stuff<\/a> Technology<\/a>","tag_info":"Technology","comment_count":"0","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p822aG-IV","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/beingbobblog.com\/happy-holidays\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2785","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/beingbobblog.com\/happy-holidays\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/beingbobblog.com\/happy-holidays\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beingbobblog.com\/happy-holidays\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beingbobblog.com\/happy-holidays\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2785"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/beingbobblog.com\/happy-holidays\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2785\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/beingbobblog.com\/happy-holidays\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beingbobblog.com\/happy-holidays\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beingbobblog.com\/happy-holidays\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}