09/18/2017
You want a mortgage? But what about the Equifax breech? How to deal with it...
As we have been hearing, the Equifax Credit Service has been corrupted and personal information on you, including social security numbers, birth days, and other information for more than 143 million Americans is now in the hands of people that can use it to damage you. How do you deal with it?
When applying for a mortgage, your lender will request to do a "tri-merge" credit report. That's a report from three credit bureaus. Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. If you information is corrupted from the breech, your credit score may suffer, and it will cost you more to get that mortgage.
Contact each bureau and ask that your credit be frozen. Your information could still be updated through the bureaus, but no one will be able to access your credit without your knowledge. It may cost you a couple of $$ to do this, but Equifax is waiving the fee for the next 30 days.
When your mortgage lender is ready to pull your credit report, ask the credit bureaus to temporally release the freeze, and then reapply it after the report is pulled. This may need to be done a few times throughout the process.
Even though it can be a hassle to do this, it can be worth thousands of dollars over the life of your mortgage.
For more information on this or any other question you may have, please feel free to contact me.