<div style="margin: 12px 0px; font-family: arial; color: #333333; background: #ffffff; border: solid 4px #e5e5e5; width: 100%; clear: left;"><div class="CM_CTB_Content_Wrap" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;background-color: #ffffff;"><div style="border-bottom: solid 1px #dcdcdc; white-space: nowrap; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: #eeeeee ;background-image: url(http://clipmarks.com/images/source-bg.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; height: 24px; line-height: 24px; vertical-align: middle; padding-bottom: 4px; color: #666666; font-size: 10px;" ><a href="http://clipmarks.com/clip-to-blog/" title="see clips that are hot right now"><img src="http://content.clipmarks.com/blog_embed/12cfcf8a-8a9f-4d8f-a113-0ca8055a2471/0BACE662-7501-4988-A5A7-94FB49D375EB/" alt="" width="19" height="19" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle; margin: 0px 4px; display: inline; border: none; float:none;" /></a>clipped from <a title="http://rismedia.com/wp/2008-09-30/raising-credit-scores-is-key-for-consumers-in-time-of-tight-lending/" href="http://rismedia.com/wp/2008-09-30/raising-credit-scores-is-key-for-consumers-in-time-of-tight-lending/" style="font-size: 11px;">rismedia.com</a></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://rismedia.com/wp/2008-09-30/raising-credit-scores-is-key-for-consumers-in-time-of-tight-lending/"><P>“Before, below 500 was the traditional cutoff for loan approval, no matter how high the interest rate or amount of money down,” he said.</P></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://rismedia.com/wp/2008-09-30/raising-credit-scores-is-key-for-consumers-in-time-of-tight-lending/"><P>Banks, suffering from bad loans, have become much pickier about who will get a loan.</P></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://rismedia.com/wp/2008-09-30/raising-credit-scores-is-key-for-consumers-in-time-of-tight-lending/"><P>Todd Mark, vice president of education at Consumer Credit Counseling Service of Greater Dallas, said that to get the best interest rates, consumers now must have a FICO credit score of 720 or above-a substantial increase from previous standards.</P></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://rismedia.com/wp/2008-09-30/raising-credit-scores-is-key-for-consumers-in-time-of-tight-lending/"><P>The most widely used is the FICO score developed by Fair Isaac Corp. It ranges from 300 to 850.</P></blockquote></div><div style="margin: 0px 6px 6px 4px;"><table style="font-size: 11px;border-spacing: 0px;padding: 0px;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr><td style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;">&nbsp;</td><td align="right" style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;width:107px" width="107"><a href="http://clipmarks.com/share/0BACE662-7501-4988-A5A7-94FB49D375EB/blog/" title="blog or email this clip"><img src="http://content8.clipmarks.com/images/c2b-foot.png" border="0" alt="blog it" width="107" height="17" style="border-width:0px;padding:0px;margin:0px;" /></a></td></tr></table></div></div>

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