Credit Score

[Levi Terrell]

Ok, I feel like this is a dumb questions but I am seeing a lot of different information online. I am about to be a first time home buyer and I am looking for financing in Dallas Texas. 

-Where is the best place (Online /Offline) to check my credit score?

-When I check my own credit score online does it hurt my score?

Thank you for your time on a such a small question. 

[Race Ostler]

@Levi Terrell

 The gold standard for all things credit score related is myfico.com.  There is so much misinformation regarding credit scores so it's important you trust your source and that is THE source.   I've spent countless hours on their forums and they have moderators and contributors who are very experienced in the industry.

There are a lot of websites like FreeCreditScore.com and CreditKarma that have a lot of feel good ads and appear to offer free credit scores.  The problem with this is, it's almost always their own scoring model that banks don't ever and will never look at.  In other words the whole purpose of a credit score is to determine credit worthiness from potential creditors- that means that we only care about what potential creditors care about.  And something like 90% of financial institutions only care about and only use FICO scores.  So if it's not a FICO score I don't care about it.  FICO is an acronym of a company that has been producing scoring algorithms since the '50s.  FICO scores range from 300-850 where some of these "free credit score" websites' own scoring model might range from 400-999.  These sites can actually mislead consumers because their scoring ranges are different.

Because FICO knows they have the scoring model that everyone wants (banks and therefore consumers) you usually have to pay for your FICO credit score.  There are three different credit bureaus that provide FICO credit scores (with slightly different scoring models) are Equifax, Transunion, and Experian.  It's important to note that each of the 3 bureaus provides a "FICO score".  So to personally check all three it will cost around $40 depending on the promotion going on at myfico.com.  Another myth is people think that checking their own credit score counts as an inquiry and dings their credit score.  This is not true if you personally check your credit score.  Where it does count as an inquiry and lowers your score by only 5 points or so is if you initiate a potential lender to check your score, e.g. you apply for any sort of loan.

Technically those free sites can provide some value but only if you use it to see how you're doing relative to previous scorings from the same site.