How to Build Credit Fast
People regularly ask me for tips on how to build credit fast. Among the usual—paying down credit card limits and becoming authorized users—I tell spouses to leverage each other’s credit scores.
For a variety of reasons, you might need to learn how to build credit fast. Maybe you are applying for a loan and want to secure lower interest rates. Perhaps you are a candidate for a job at a company that runs a credit check before hiring new employees. (After all, 60 percent of companies run a credit check at least some of the time.)
If you have a balance that exceeds 30 percent of the limit on a credit card, you can transfer a portion or the entire balance to your spouse’s credit card.
This is among my favorite tips for how to build credit fast because it makes a huge difference. With the credit scoring systems calculating outstanding debt as 30 percent of your credit score, your score will quickly increase if you lower your outstanding debt. You can then walk into the loan application or job interview with low personal debt and a higher-than-usual credit score.
Though you might lower your spouse’s credit score, you can quickly “buy back” the debt using your credit cards once you secure the loan or job. Of course, you will need to repay the favor if your spouse ever needs tricks for how to build credit fast!
