Matt Rizzolo of Black Diamond Mortgage with the 6 items that affect your credit score:

  1. Amount of inquiries in the past 2 years
    1. Important not to have too many
    2. Similar inquiries may be treated as one, such as if you are shopping for a mortgage
  2. Number of new accounts in past 2 years
    1. Don’t open too many accounts at once
  3. Total amount of available credit
    1. The more credit available, the better your score
    2. $25,000 in available credit is a good number to work towards
  4. Oldest line of credit
    1. Don’t close your old accounts so that you can improve the age of your credit
  5. On-time payments
    1. Make at least minimum payments
  6. Amount of credit usage
    1. Don’t tap into all the credit you have available
    2. Keep your usage at 10-20%
    3. This is the most important credit factor, but is easily remedied

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