Check Your Credit Score Before Your Mortgage Does
Your credit score is one of the first things every lender reads - so read it first. Checking your own score is free, takes about two minutes, and never hurts your credit. What you find shapes everything from your rate to your lender options, and surprises are far cheaper to fix now than mid-approval.
Get Your Free Credit Score
Borrowell shows you your Equifax credit score free, updated weekly. No credit card, no trial period, no catch - and checking is a soft inquiry, so it never affects your score.
Check My Score FreeDisclosure: this is a referral link - if you sign up through it, Shawn may receive a small referral fee at no cost to you. It changes nothing about the service you get.
What Your Score Means for a Mortgage
Every lender reads the score first, but they do not all read it the same way. The honest landscape: insured mortgage programs set a floor of 600, mainstream lenders generally like to see the mid-600s and up, and the sharpest pricing lives higher still. Below those lines is not a dead end - it is a different shelf of lenders and a rebuilding plan, covered in the bad credit FAQ.
The part most people miss: the score is a doorway, not the whole decision. Lenders read the full report behind it - your payment history, how much of your available credit you use, how long your accounts have existed, and how the last two years have gone. Two people with the same score can get very different receptions depending on what is underneath it.
What Actually Moves a Score
- Pay every minimum, every month. Payment history is the heaviest factor, and a single fresh late mark costs more than most people expect.
- Keep balances under about a third of your limits. Utilization is the fastest-moving lever - paying a maxed card down often moves a score within a statement cycle or two.
- Let old accounts live. The age of your credit helps you; closing your oldest card shortens your history.
- Do not open new credit before a mortgage. New accounts and a burst of applications both read as risk exactly when you want to look boring.
- Check your report for errors. They are common, they are fixable, and they are free to dispute - the playbook is below.
The myth that will not die
You do NOT need to carry a balance to build credit. Using a card and paying it in full each month builds the same history without paying a cent of interest. Carrying a balance builds interest for the card company, not credit for you.
Soft Pulls, Hard Pulls, and Why Checking Yourself Is Always Safe
Checking your own score - through Borrowell or directly with a bureau - is a soft inquiry: visible only to you, zero effect on your score, check it daily if you like. A hard inquiry happens when a lender checks you for actual credit, and costs a few points briefly. One more thing worth knowing: when a broker pulls your bureau, it is one pull used for the whole lender market - not one inquiry per lender. That single-pull model is one of the quiet advantages of the broker channel, and it is why walking bank to bank collecting inquiries is the worst way to shop a mortgage.
Found an Error? The Dispute Playbook
Canada has two bureaus - and lenders may pull either
Equifax and TransUnion keep separate files on you, and they do not always match. Borrowell shows your Equifax side free; it is worth seeing your TransUnion side too, since a lender may read either one. Errors - accounts that are not yours, paid debts showing as owing, wrong late marks - appear more often than people think, and both bureaus are required to investigate disputes, free.
The sequence: get the report, circle anything wrong, dispute it with the bureau in writing with any proof you have, and keep copies. Disputes typically resolve within about a month. If a mortgage is coming, start this early - a corrected report before the application beats an explanation during it. And if the error involves fraud or identity theft, both bureaus can place alerts on your file; tell your broker too, because lenders have seen it before and there are ways to work through it.
Quick Questions About Credit and Mortgages
What score do I need to buy a home? Insured programs set a floor of 600; stronger files get stronger pricing; bruised files have their own lender shelf. The full picture, including rebuilding timelines, lives in the bad credit FAQ and the first-time buyer FAQ.
Why is my Borrowell score different from what my lender sees? Different bureaus, different scoring models, different dates - consumer scores and lender-pulled scores rarely match exactly. Treat your free score as a weather report: the right ballpark and the right trend, not the lender's exact number.
How fast can a score improve? Utilization fixes can show up within a cycle or two. Fresh late marks fade slowly - their weight drops as they age. A deliberate year of clean payments and low balances rebuilds most bruised files meaningfully; the bad credit FAQ maps the ladder.
Should my partner check theirs too? Yes - lenders underwrite to the weaker of two files on a joint application. Both of you checking now beats one of you discovering a surprise mid-approval.
Here's the thing about your score
It is a snapshot, not a sentence. Every score on every report is just a photograph of your last few years of habits - and habits change photographs. The buyers who check early, fix what is fixable, and give the file a year of boring behaviour choose their lender. The ones who find out mid-application take whatever is left. Check now; the timing is the whole game.
Checked your score? The next fifteen minutes are free too.
Whatever the number says, there is a plan for it - and knowing yours makes the first conversation twice as useful.
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