Credit Score

What Determines Your Credit Score?

Your credit score is an integral piece of the car buying process. In fact, your credit score is in important factor any time you secure a loan. A credit score takes into a number of factors to determine how creditworthy you are. Financial institutions, car dealerships, and other lenders use this number to determine how much risk they face by lending you money. A higher score means you are less likely to default on your outstanding debt, while a lower score means you are more likely to default.

Are you a first time buyer, with little to no credit history? Check out our First Time Buyer Program –we'll help to make your financing process as seamless as possible. 

Here are the five major factors that determine your credit score (in order of importance):

Payment history.

The most important factor to any lender is your payment history. Do you make your payments on time? If you've made late payments, how late were they? Have any of your accounts gone to collection?

Amounts owed.

How much of your total available credit are you using?

Length of credit history.

How long have you had your accounts, including the age of your oldest account, newest account and average of all your accounts? A long history of making consistent payments on your accounts will help your credit score.

Types of credit.

Do you only use a few types? It's best to have a good mix of debt, including mortgages, credit cards, installment loans, and car loans.

New credit.

Do you open credit card after credit card? Opening several new accounts in a short time will hurt your credit score.

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