Apartment shopping can be a lot of fun. You get to look at many units and decide whether you can see yourself living in one of those areas for the next year or more. But one thing you have to keep in mind while apartment shopping is how good your credit is. All potential landlords will take a look at your credit to see whether you are a reliable tenant and then use that to determine whether to rent to you or not.

If you are worried about your credit and whether it is high enough for you to move into an apartment, then there are a few steps you can take to help improve the score and get it as high as possible. Some of these include:

# Pay the bills on time: Besides correcting some of the potential errors that are on your credit report, you also need to pay your bills on time. Lenders will report late payments when you are more than 30 days past the due date and it only takes one late payment to cause some issues. In fact, one late payment can lower your credit by 100 points. Stay up to date on all payments to avoid this issue.

# Pay off credit cards first: When it comes to the credit bureaus, all credit is not equal. The revolving accounts, like credit cards, will affect your credit score more than some of the installment accounts like the mortgage or the auto loan. If you are in debt and looking to raise your score, you should pay down some of the credit report. Knocking it down by a few thousand dollars can raise the score 100 points, while the same amount on a mortgage may only matter 10 points.

# Don’t use too much credit: Another step that you can take to help make your credit score go up is to be careful about the amount of credit you use at any given time. It is best to keep it under 10 percent of the credit that is available to you for the best results and to improve your score.

Once you have had a chance to work on your credit score and it is a bit higher, it is time to begin the search for a new apartment. Our apartments in downtown Long Beach, CA are some of the best in the area, providing you amenities, lots of space, and a great location. We have several units available to suit all your needs. Come and take a look at our units and see if they are just right for you.