Over the past several months I’ve received many questions regarding credit repair firms – ranging from the actual service these firms provide to why I remain so dead set against them.

These questions reveal how little mortgage professionals understand about credit repair. How can an industry so vocal in their advertising (just try a Google search on “credit repair”), remain so mysterious about what they actually do?

Here they are, in no particular order.

Alan Vogan
First Lending Solutions
Riverside, California
(951) 317-3165
I’ve known Alan for years – and in the spirit of full disclosure, Alan personally handles all of my mortgage needs. When I need to better understand a new Fannie Mae underwriting issue, or the impact of new legislation on lending practices, I’ll call Alan. While its true that he understands the business of mortgage lending better than most, his true strength is an uncanny ability to see things from an applicant’s perspective. I recently referred a friend to Alan and his experience sums this up perfectly. While Alan was working on my friends loan he did the unthinkable and sent my friend to a competitor (Bank Of America) because he knew the bank had a very good loan program. Turns out that BofA didn’t offer the program as advertised, and Alan now counts my friend as a client.

Kevin Glackin
Village Capital
Mount Laurel, NJ
(856)-252-1517
Kevin has a very good understanding of mortgage credit – and is well versed in credit proofreading. Recently, credit proofreading discovered that the single derogatory item on an applicant’s credit report was involved a credit card the applicant used every day. However, though the card had the applicant’s name on it, he was actually an authorized user on the card. This means that the true card holder (his brother), had simply added a card to his account and then gave it to the applicant. The applicant’s brother was going through a difficult time and became late on the payments. Kevin’s credit proofreading tools revealed that since the applicant was only a user on the card, the late payments belonged to his brother, not the applicant. Kevin used his credit proofreading tools to permanently remove this derogatory account from the file in days. And, are you ready for this? The applicant’s credit score increased 240 points. Now that’s service.

Christian Lombardini
United Fidelity Mortgage
Nashville, Tennessee
(615) 383-5626
Christian is another one of my favorite loan officers because he consistently puts the client first. Sometimes this means working with a client for months (at his own expense) until the client is financially prepared to make a mortgage loan commitment. In one recent experience a client wanted a mortgage, but needed to increase his down payment amount. Christian consulted with the applicant and helped him devise a savings plan. Christian also used his credit proofreading skills to improve the applicant’s credit health at the same time. After following Christian’s advice, the client was able to buy his new home nine months ahead of schedule. The capper was that the applicant was referred by a real estate agent, and Christian went out of his way to make sure the agent received the all the credit. Nicely done.

Shane Jackson
ENG Lending
Little Rock, Arkansas
(501) 907-1126
Shane is another expert in credit proofreading, which means simply that he knows how to use software to detect and eliminate errors in credit files that damage credit health. When our company was interviewed by a leading mortgage publication about how credit proofreading helps borrowers, the magazine also interviewed Shane. Shane mentioned that more than 10% of declined applicants can be turned into approvals by simply proofreading their credit files, and removing errors. Imagine a couple declined for their first home simply because their credit score had been incorrectly evaluated due to errors within the credit file. Guys like Shane won’t let that happen.

If you are looking for a mortgage, I’d heartily recommend these folks. They’ll take care of you. If you are a real estate agent, and if you live near one of these mortgage professionals, do your client a favor and pass along one of these names. Tell them the Caped Crusader sent you.

Most mortgage clients understand that their credit report influences their loan and its terms. For many, then, credit review and improvement can mean the world — not to mention a favorable mortgage.

For brokers, credit proofreading — or credit review and rescoring — can be an effective referral-generating opportunity. This service helps you identify errors in your clients’ credit reports, as well as ways they can correct the errors.

In fact, many FICO scores could be wrong. A 2004 U.S. Public Interest Research Group report found that 25 percent of credit reports contain “errors serious enough to deny consumers access to credit.” This could mean that one of in four
applicants may be turned down because their credit score was wrongly and unnecessarily lowered in error.

Another type of error that can deflate FICO scores and that often is more damaging involves credit-use. These errors  often appear in different forms, which makes them hard to detect. Worse, consumers who seemingly make good short-term financial decisions inadvertently commit credit use errors without realizing it.

In fact, many consumers use credit in ways that needlessly lower their scores. Some have too many credit cards. Others don’t have enough. The same goes for credit balances. It all depends on how the credit fits into their profiles and how Fair Isaac and Co. interprets consumers’ new credit.

Mortgage brokers can help their clients identify these errors, however, and work toward reconciling them and increasing their credit scores. To offer a credit-review and rescoring service, you’ll likely want software that detects any hint of data or usage errors within a credit profile. The software scans an applicants’ entire credit profiles each time you order a credit report. Results are then neatly categorized by the type of error, with credit-use errors separated from
data errors.

Once detected, these tools tell you how to fix the errors and how many more points your clients will get by doing so. With the help of a credit-reporting agency, your clients often can see higher credit scores in just three days. When you position your credit review in a way that presents you as a qualifying expert, you’re moving down the referral runway. Taking the next step and demonstrating that you can improve your clients’ credit health can enhance your referrals.

People are concerned with every detail of their financial lives, and with credit proofreading, their credit profile becomes the one financial area in which you can help. And because healthier credit profiles often mean higher credit scores and better mortgage terms, many clients go out of their way to send you their friends and family members.