Has your credit score taken a hit in this tough economy. You may be able to boost it... in just days

(WXYZ) - We all know it's important to have a good credit score. It's what dictates the kind of rate you'll get for loans, or whether you'll even be approved. It takes quite some time to get a low score higher. But there's actually a shortcut some can take advantage of if you're looking for a rapid improvement.

Deborah Davenport stumbled over a great deal on a house recently and knew she wanted to buy.
"I was looking for the best rate I could get on a mortgage," Deborah says.

Not liking the interest rate she was offered when the mortgage company saw her credit report, she went to a credit expert for advice on how to bump her score up in a hurry. His number one tip: pay off a credit card she owed 500 bucks on. It wasn't a bunch of money in her case, but because the card limit was only 700, it ruined her credit to debt ratio, which had a direct impact on her score.
"So by paying that $500 and now putting the card to a zero balance, it lowered my ratios," Deborah explains.

But she couldn’t wait for the payoff to be reported to the credit agencies--something that happens automatically every 30 to 45 days, so she had her lender request a rapid rescore. What's that?
"Rapid rescore is essentially an unscheduled update to the information on your credit report," Credit.com’s John Ulzheimer says. He says mortgage lenders hire outside companies to do a quick update.
"So if you pay off a credit card or pay off a collection for example then through the process of rapid updating they can have that information reflected within 24-72 hours ."

They can also work with you to quickly correct inaccuracies on your report. Getting it all reported quickly can make all the difference.
"It can take someone who can't qualify right now and get them to that credit score level where they do qualify for a mortgage, or it might get them to the level where they qualify for a better interest rate," Wayne Sanford from New Start Financial Corp. explains.

Once you've done what it takes to fix your accounts, your loan officer or broker can request the rapid rescore. And it does cost money, generally about 30-dollars for each account for each bureau, so an update to one card could be $90. And it may not always improve the score enough to get the loan approved. But it worked for Davenport, not just with her mortgage, but other loans, too.
“I'm able to get better rates on other cards and other types of loans, even my car loan recently, i was able to get a very low rate because the score, my credit score, is higher than it would have been." Sometimes the score involves an error, which requires a dispute which you will still need to help resolve.

Right now true rapid rescoring is used almost exclusively by mortgage lenders, you can’t do it on your own. But we can all improve our score over time.  Robin Thompson runs BudgetWise Consulting. Because your credit score is based on your credit report, be sure to pull your free copies at annualcreditreport.com. Just what is your score made up of? The largest part, 35% is your payment history.

“Now with so many people out of work, they might have skipped payments. If you’re back on your feet, make sure that you catch up and begin to pay those bills on time,” Thompson says. “That’s going to go a long way towards increasing your credit score.”
The next biggest chunk, what you owe, versus how much available credit you have.

“If you’re a person with a lot of credit cards, one of the first things you need to do is look at those cards and see which ones are maxed out or very close to the credit limit because that’s 30 percent of your credit score… in terms of the ratio of the amount of debt you’re carrying to your credit limit,” Thompson explains.

Ideally, you want your balance below 20 to 30 percent of your credit limit. Because credit history also factors into your score, about 15 percent, don’t be so quick to close accounts. Keep them open, but use them infrequently. New credit and the types of credit you have make up the rest of your score.

Just keep in mind some small moves can make a big difference in repairing a score beaten down by tough times.

For more information about your FICO credit score, visit www.myfico.com