How much credit you have available is a considerable factor in your FICO score. As you can learn from Home Loan Credit Score, a total of 30% of your score is related to how much outstanding debt you have, as opposed to how much credit you have open. Having less than 50% of your available credit open can have negative results on your credit score. It’s smart to try and maintain 75% available credit, which appears to be low risk behavior and can significantly increase your credit score.

Another important item to be mindful of is, after you pay off a debt, allow the account to remain open, even if you don’t see any reason not to close it. By closing the account you are reducing the amount of available credit you have available and in turn decreasing your FICO score. If you have already closed accounts after paying them off, get in touch with the creditors and see if they will allow you to reopen the accounts. To be clear, this does not mean to get them give you a new account with he same creditor, as this is viewed much differently and will not contribute positively toward your length of credit history. Instead, see if you can get them to actually reopen the closed account with that account’s history intact.

By closely observing your credit report and guaranteeing that the important pieces of your credit are tended to, you can keep your credit score at the top of the range, or even bring it up substantially in as little as 60 days. While maintaining a good payment history and maintaining available credit at a maximum are affective in improving your score, there are other credit related issues that affect your credit score just as much. To find out more about credit score repair, Credit Score Professional and other financial aspects that that can raise or lower your FICO score, go to Home Loan Credit Score and read about what you need to know about maintaining good credit.