5 Ways to Keep Your Good Credit Score

Ok, so you've worked hard to maintain your credit score. However, during the new credit crunch, these five principles apply:

1. Pay your bills on time. Use your bank's online bill payment service and have them paid automatically.

2. Don't open too many credit cards. Also, keep the balances of the cards you have at 40% or less of the available credit limit, if possible.

3. Don't close a line of credit before paying it off, or close many credit cards at once. This can temporarily affect your debt-to-credit ratio, thus lowering your score for a short time.

4. Try not to close the accounts you have had the longest. 15% of your score is based on the length of your credit history.

5. Avoid opening new accounts to increase available credit. This can lower your score.

Resource: "Consumer Reports", July 2009.

8 Universal Business Principles

Realtors-this is worth repeating from Craig Proctor, who sold over 500 Homes in 2007 and was Top 10 for RE/MAX Worldwide for 15 Consecutive Years:

UNIVERSAL BUSINESS PRINCIPLE #1 - Prospects Do NOT Want to Be Sold. Prospects Absolutely Will NOT Hear What You're Saying Unless You Tell Them What THEY Want to Know.

UNIVERSAL BUSINESS PRINCIPLE #2 - The ONLY Vote That Counts is the Customer's. If You're Not Sure Whether Something Will Work or Not, TEST it Out and Let the Customer Tell You Whether It's Right. Only Direct Response Advertising Can Give You This Power to Test.

UNIVERSAL BUSINESS PRINCIPLE #3 - Prospects Need a Compelling Reason to Do Business With You. Prospects Won't Call You Just Because They Know Who You Are. If You Want Them to Favor You With Their Business, You Must Answer the Question "What's in it for them?".

UNIVERSAL BUSINESS PRINCIPLE #4 - If You Try to Be All Things to All People, You Dilute Your Effectiveness. It's Very Important to Know Who You're Talking To; Select Your Target Market So You Can Focus Your Marketing Efforts and Be Efficient With Your Spending.

UNIVERSAL BUSINESS PRINCIPLE #5 - You Must Make it EASY and Fun for Prospects to Do Business With You. If Your Message is Hard to Understand, If You Are Difficult to Reach, If Prospects Have to Go Out of Their Way, They Won't Stick Around to Give You a Second Chance.

UNIVERSAL BUSINESS PRINCIPLE #6 - The ONLY Way to Transform Your JOB Into a BUSINESS is to Work ON Your Business Rather Than IN it. If All You Ever Do is "Do, Do, Do", You'll Never Gain the Perspective of How to DO BETTER.

UNIVERSAL BUSINESS PRINCIPLE #7 - The ONLY Way to Avoid Trading Your Time For Money is to Understand and Use the Concept of Leverage. Leverage Is The Power To Maximize Your Results With The Least Amount Of Energy, Time, Money And Risk.

UNIVERSAL BUSINESS PRINCIPLE #8 - Without a System, You Will Reinvent the Wheel Every time. Effective Systems Will Save You Time and Money, and Help You Achieve Consistent And Predictable Results.

Alcova Mortgage vs. local/online provider

The difference between using John Achino and Alcova Mortgage as your mortgage bank and your local bank or online provider is the following:
1. I work when you don't! I'm available for working people on evenings and even weekends. No banker's hours for me.
2. Your local bank or online provider can only offer limited loan programs. I can offer any program available.
3. You will communicate directly with me and know exactly where you stand in the loan process. Your local bank or online provider cannot provide the same level of service.