Your Credit Score Numbers – How Do You Stack Up?

If you’ve gotten your credit score lately (also commonly called your FICO number), you may be wondering where you fall on the scale.  For that matter, what exactly is the scale?  What are average credit score numbers?  High?  Low?  Well, we’ll look at these mysterious numbers and you can see just where you stand compared to the average American.

Credit score numbers range from a low of 300 to a high of 850.  The average score in America in 2006, according to one of the major credit bureaus, was about 685, although that has probably dropped quite a bit with all the foreclosures going on.  It’s just that 2006 is the last year we have information on.  It’s pretty hard to believe the average credit score numbers haven’t dropped a few points with over one million homes in foreclosure.

Any credit score above 700 is considered good, and the further above it, the better.  Anything over 800 is considered fantastic, and a person with a score like that is probably never turned down for a loan.  Below 700 is not so hot, and below 620 or so is pretty bad, and anything below 550 is really terrible.  Someone with a 450 credit score would probably get turned down for a library card.

If your credit score numbers aren’t so hot, take heart.  One of the nice thing about these numbers is that the worse they are, the easier it is to raise them.  Now, it’s going to take some doing to get a 550 from a 750, but it can be done.  In fact, people do it all the time.  Not millions of people, but some are able to do it, and if someone else can do it, so can you.  And it’s a whole lot easier to go from 575 to 675 than it is to go from 675 to 750.  So if your credit score is bad, it’s definitely holding you back; but the good news is that you can raise it a lot higher.