New Year, New Score, New Borrower.

By Becky Kaes

With mortgage rates falling to yet another record low for the 15th time as 2020 came to a close, consumers should optimistically set a New Year’s Resolution to improve their credit score.

The most common aspirations for the coming year are to eat healthier, get more exercise, and to save more money; but unfortunately, it is very rare for people to keep resolutions for the entire year. According the U.S. News & World Report, 80% of all resolutions fail by mid-February. But what if we told you we could help your borrowers make a positive change stick for 2021 and help you close more loans?

Service 1st has a suite of solutions powered by CreditXpert that are designed to retain prospective customers who need a little boost in improving their credit scores. Additionally, it helps improve lender pull through rates, prevents applicants from going to competitors, and helps customers get into the home of their dreams. There are different analysis tool options to pick from, depending on the situation, which have helped increase an applicant’s score by an average of 27 points! Products include:

• WayFinder - A report that shows consumers how they can improve their credit scores. For example: Paying off a balance. It only recommends actions that can produce a significant score increase (3 points or more). This product automatically calculates the best possible score improvement scenario from an entered disposable cash value or desired score increase. It also provides a detailed analysis of a consumer’s credit history, including negative and positive scoring factors.

• What-if Simulator - It simulates the impact of various actions on a consumer’s credit score, enabling experimentation with actions like paying off a balance, closing accounts, missing payments, or updating information. It also can view their potential effects before actually taking the steps that will impact their credit standing. Users can experiment with countless scenarios and view potential effects to determine the best possible option for re-scoring (supplemental work) or determine if work done on the current file would be worth the cost.

• Credit Assure - Allows customers to look before they leap and decide which product to use while keeping customers ‘in the loop’. They are automatically linked the CreditXpert® products that can help them. Credit Assure retains credit report pricing margins, winning new business with better margins while improving the customer experience.

After your borrower has completed the recommended actions, our S1 team can update the credit bureaus as well and do a re-pull, or “Rapid Rescore”, within as little as 72 hours!

Remind your borrower that their spending and payment habits, keeping debt balances low in relation to their total credit limits, and the age and variety of accounts still have the most impact on credit scores. However, ‘credit health’ is much like personal health – it can be improved with discipline and regular check-ups. A new year with improved scores will lead to higher pull-through rates, money saved, and more loans closed for lenders in 2021.