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Long the gold standard for most lenders to determine credit worthiness, the FICO score’s influence is slowly fading and major lenders are instead looking to in-house and alternative evaluations.

Does unemployment affect your credit score? Unemployment won't directly affect your credit score. Your credit score is a reflection of your history with credit accounts, not your situation. But if ...

HELOC applications require a hard credit pull, which temporarily lowers your credit score. Closing a HELOC and carrying a big debt balance could lower your credit score, depending on how your lender ...

Katherine Watt is a former CNET Money writer focusing on mortgages, home equity and banking. She previously wrote about personal finance for NextAdvisor. Based in New York, Katherine graduated summa ...