Your credit report is what most lenders look at to help them determine your creditworthiness. Almost every adult in the United States has a credit report. There are three major credit reporting agencies:

• TransUnion: (800) 888-4213
• Equifax: (800) 685-1111
• Experian (formerly TRW): (888) 397-3742

You can request a free credit report once a year. There are companies that will charge you a small amount to view your reports, and that's OK, just keep in mind that if youi haven't requested one in the past year, you can get it for free.

Each of these companies will maintain a report on you and based on these three reports, a credit scoring system was devised to provide lenders with a numerical "score" to give them a background on your credit history. Each credit reporting agency will basically have the same categories of information

1. Your Personal Information: such as your name, your current address, past addresses, social security number, your date of birth and also your employment. None of these are factors in determining your credit score, however.

2. Your Accounts: Any type of credit that you've opened is here, such as loans, credit cards, auto financing, etc. This section also contains your payment history for each. If you were late, how late, and how often. It's usually defined by being a month or so late, so if you hear a mortgage representative using slang such as "You've got two-thirties, a sixty and one-ninety" they're talking about two payments that were thirty days late (one month), one payment that was sixty days late (two months) and so on.

3. Collection or Public Records: If anything financial was filed against you in a court -county or state-, such as a judgment, wage attachment, bankruptcy, foreclosure or tax lien, it will appear here with the amount owed if there is an amount.

4. Inquires: Anytime your credit report is accessed (or "pulled" as the mortgage reps usually call it), it's noted as an inquiry. The inquiry could be initiated by you for a loan or credit (remember when you applied on a lark for a department store credit card because you wanted the free bottle of soda they were giving away?) or it could also be initiated by companies who want to make you an offer based on your credit. (Think of… "You've been Pre-Approved!" type of offers in the mail) Your credit score is only affected by inquires of your request. (Except if you are requesting your own report, this won't affect your score).

The combination of your accounts and their payment history, the length of your credit history, public records and inquires make up your credit score.