April 2024

Multilingual businesses and employees are in increasingly high demand across industries. While the idea of learning a new language (or a few) may seem daunting, a proven and popular method is temporarily available at a discounted cost.

For a short time, unlimited access to the Rosetta Stone Language Learning app is on sale for only $179.99 (reg. $399) with coupon code ROSETTA. That’s nearly 60% savings on a platform that has helped millions of users accomplish linguistic goals for more than three decades.

Global business relationships await with this resource, which The Wall Street Journal described as “maybe the next best thing to living in a country.” PC Magazine’s Editors’ Choice Award for Best Language-Learning Software for five straight years, Rosetta Stone serves up a proven approach toward gaining comfort with 25 languages.

That large collection of course options includes Chinese, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Korean, Japanese, Russian, Spanish and more than a dozen other languages. Boosted by speech-recognition technology, Rosetta Stone supplies real-time advice to expedite the process.

This service carries a store rating of 4.5 out five based on verified buyer reviews, featuring five-star feedback from February 2024 that reads, “Great! This is the only online tool which allows you to approach learning a foreign language as you would in an academic environment.”

Differentiate yourself from other job candidates with an expanded communication tool kit, travel the world with increased confidence and impress family and friends by partaking in the Rosetta Stone experience. The subscription works on multiple devices, including PCs, Macs, tablets and smartphones.

Expand your future capabilities for communication and professional dealings by picking up a lifetime subscription to the Rosetta Stone Language Learning app for only $179.99 (reg. $399) with coupon code ROSETTA.

StackSocial prices subject to change.

Don’t underestimate the possibilities of growing a purpose-led community. It’s one of the most influential tools in the entrepreneur’s toolkit to help guide your business toward longevity and long-term happiness.

Because let’s be honest — no one wants to be unhappy in their business. In this article, you will learn the importance of building a community of shared purpose and how it impacts the continued success of your business.

Entrepreneurial success sits at the heart of purpose

I would like to see more purpose-led businesses being built in the world.

Purpose-led businesses are run by entrepreneurs who lead from the heart and with the conviction that their business is doing good in the world. The business solves an important problem — maybe one that is societal or environmental. Purpose-led businesses aren’t driven solely by profit but by the change the entrepreneur wants to see in the world.

Surprisingly, my entrepreneurial journey didn’t start with purpose. It began with the idea of starting a marketing agency and solving complex marketing problems. But as my business grew, I became less driven by profit and success. Over time, my main driver became purpose, or the value that I want to bring to the world. It doesn’t matter where you are on your business journey. You can take the alternative path and refocus your business on purpose.

Building a community of shared purpose-driven entrepreneurs helped me forge this path of success. It was their inspiration, advice, and support in tough times that got me to five years in business. Remember, 2 in 10 businesses fail in the first year of operating. If you’re past this point, you’re thriving!

When you forge a community of shared interests, you see more business projects aligned with your values, better collaboration opportunities and new service verticals emerging. Don’t underestimate the power of collaboration and aligning with other business leaders on purpose. Nurturing this community is a successful ingredient to business growth — equally compared to organizational, marketing and sales tactics.

Related: Why a Purpose-Driven Business Is the Real Key to Success

Identify your community

Who will you build your purpose-led community with? That question is answered by identifying your values and purpose as an entrepreneur.

Start the process by identifying the purpose of your business. It took me hours of reflection to narrow down my purpose and values, which then fed decisively into my business. Personally, my purpose is to forge meaningful connections, lead by example and support marketers and creatives on their path to climate work — and become an ecomarketer, someone who puts people and the planet at the center focus of all their marketing campaigns.

Understanding my purpose has equipped me to identify a community of like-minded entrepreneurs interested in sustainability. It also helped me to connect with them on a deeper level. When you have a shared purpose, community connections go deeper, from transactional to building a world collaboratively for the better.

Once you’ve identified your purpose, find your community. The LinkedIn community is a great platform to connect with entrepreneurs and to identify those who might share the same values as you. It’s truly the largest business networking social media platform in the world with 1 billion members. You can use the search function to identify members sharing and talking about similar topics to yours.

But being engaged actively in the community will help you identify those with common values. These individuals are pure gold and will help your business grow. They champion your ideas, connect you to opportunities and push your industry forward. Remember, identifying the group is only the beginning. As mentioned, your long-term success comes from fostering relationships with those having a shared purpose.

Related: 3 Reasons Why Purpose-Driven Businesses Can Help You Find Better Hires, Mentors and Investors

How to build a community of shared purpose

Once you’ve built the bridge, you can follow these three pathways to building a community of shared-purpose entrepreneurs.

1. Change of mindset: Long-term — To build a community, you must have the right mindset. First, put personal gain aside and focus on the community. You will be surprised to see that the community-first mindset leads to more authentic connections that build long-term business growth. It also focuses your sights on the future, building connections that last years and don’t stop at the end of a transaction.
2. Step up: Contribute — Contributing is another important step toward building a community of purpose-driven entrepreneurs. You can’t ask for value from others if you’re not willing to step up and give the value yourself. Meaningful connections are made by giving a helping hand, passing along business opportunities to your community and offering collaboration opportunities. To build a community of shared purpose, you must embody your values and practice them openly.
3. Pass the torch: Champion other entrepreneurs — Long-term entrepreneurial success comes from taking you out of the equation. Your growth goals, objectives and business strategy aren’t the most important things in the entrepreneurial circle. Champion others’ work, give referrals and forge meaningful connections.

Find entrepreneurs with the same values and a similar journey as yours. Then, work on forging a community of shared purpose with those entrepreneurs. It’s this one business tactic that will bring you longevity and long-term business success.

11. Collect Rents & Enforce Your Lease

New landlords inevitably fail to enforce their lease terms properly. They’ve been a renter for much of their lives, they’ve fallen for all those cultural stereotypes about mean landlords, so they buckle at the first sob story they hear from a tenant late on their rent.

Hear me well: people push boundaries. It’s human nature. Tenants will try and push your boundaries to see what you’ll let them get away with. If they can pay their rent two weeks late with no consequences, but their phone service stops working if they fail to pay on time, which bill do you think they’ll prioritize?

On the first of the month, send an automated email reminder. On the day before the rent officially becomes late, send a text or manual email reminding them that they’ll get hit with a late rent fee if you don’t receive the rent today.

When the rent officially becomes late, send an official eviction warning notice required by your state’s laws. Don’t freak out about it: they’ll still have ample time to bring the rent current. The eviction notice doesn’t say “get out” — it says “cure the violation or else I’ll file in rent court in X days.” You need to do this as soon as the courtesy period ends.

Don’t feel comfortable doing that like clockwork, every time? Don’t become a landlord. Invest in passive real estate syndications instead, or at the very least, hire a property manager.

12. Decide Whether to Hire a Property Manager

If you’re like most people, you’re busy. Do you really want to listen to tenant sob stories or field phone calls at 2 am when your renter clogs the toilet?

Consider delegating the day-to-day management to a property manager. Just beware that you’ll then have to manage the manager.

You’ll need to double check their tenant screening and selection, confirm how often they inspect the property, and make sure they’re serving eviction notices the day the rent officially becomes late.

A good property management company is worth their weight in gold. Unfortunately, the industry is rife with shoddy, unprofessional property managers.

Whether to hire a property manager isn’t always an easy decision. I’ve known real estate investors who actually hire the property manager first, before deciding to invest in a certain real estate market. Because without good property management, your returns will suffer, and an otherwise good property might lose money.

Pros & Cons of Becoming a Landlord

You now know how to become a landlord. But should you become a landlord?

Weigh the following pros and cons of becoming a landlord before committing your time and money.

Pros of Being a Landlord

I spent many years as a landlord, and it has a lot going for it. Consider the following upsides to owning rental property:

• • Ongoing and expanding passive income: Once you buy a property, it continues paying passive income forever. In fact, that income grows over time, as rents rise even as your mortgage payments remain fixed.
  • Appreciation: Even as you collect cash flow, your property also rises in value, at least in most cases.
  • Leverage: You can buy real estate assets with other people’s money. A lender covers most of the cost, and your renters pay down your mortgage balance. Plus, your cash flow grows disproportionately faster than rents, since your mortgage payment stays the same even as rents go up.
  • Tax benefits: Landlords enjoy dozens of rental property tax deductions. You don’t have to itemize your deductions, either — these come off your taxable rental income, so you can still take the standard deduction. Plus, you can deduct for depreciation and show a loss on your tax return even as you collect money in real life.
  • Predictable cash flow: As outlined above, you can accurately forecast a property’s cash flow before buying. Once you master this, you can avoid bad investments moving forward.

Cons of Being a Landlord

Rental properties aren’t all fun and games. There’s a reason I sold off my rental properties, after all.

Beware of the following drawbacks before you become a landlord.

• • High skill required: It takes knowledge to reliably make money on rental investments. And that knowledge requires dozens or more likely hundreds of hours to acquire.
  • Not truly passive: Rental investing requires labor. Sure, we talk about “passive income,” but rental income isn’t actually passive. It requires work to find good deals on rental properties, work to line up financing and close on them, work to renovate them and rent them out and to manage them.
  • Risk: Like all investments, rental properties come with risk. Risk that the tenant stops paying rent or destroys your property. Neighbors could also damage your property, or local “knuckleheads” (a euphemism if I’ve ever heard one) could vandalize it. There’s even a risk that the government will make lease agreements only one-way enforceable again, putting another eviction moratorium in place.
  • Legal liability: Your tenants or neighbors or contractors can sue you. I’ve been sued twice as a landlord, and it sucks. Even when you win, you still lose, because it costs you money, time, and stress to defend yourself.
  • Loan liability: When you borrow a rental property loan, you sign a personal guarantee. Fail to pay it back, and the lender can come after your personal assets such as your home, car, and baseball card collection.

FAQs About Becoming a Landlord

Still have a few questions about how to become a landlord?

Hopefully these will get you squared away.

Is becoming a landlord worth it?

It depends. If you have a passion for real estate and want to start a real estate side hustle as an investor and landlord, then absolutely. But if you just want to diversify your investment portfolio, there are much easier ways to do so. You can earn just as much (or more) passive income and appreciation from real estate syndications, or even real estate crowdfunding platforms, without the headaches.

Can you buy a rental property with no money down?

You can get creative with coming up with a down payment for a rental property. Theoretically you can buy a property with no money down. But that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea, as you might overleverage yourself and end up with negative cash flow.

Should I become a Section 8 landlord?

That’s a business decision you’ll have to make for yourself. On the plus side, Section 8 pays their portion of the rent on time every month. But the tenant doesn’t necessarily pay their portion on time (or at all). Worse, the annual inspection inevitably leaves you with thousands of dollars in repairs, which often aren’t necessary but writing up repairs is how Section 8 inspectors show their supervisors that they hit every property on their rounds.

Should I invest in local or long-distance rental properties?

It depends on whether your home city is a good market for rental investing. Many aren’t, in which case you have no choice but to look elsewhere if you want to invest in rental real estate.

Should I use the BRRRR method or buy turnkey rental properties?

If you invest long-distance, only buy turnkey properties. If you invest locally, you can consider buying fixer-uppers to follow the BRRRR strategy, but start small with cosmetic repairs. You add a whole new level of complications when you renovate properties.

Final Thoughts on Becoming a Landlord

First-time landlords tend to make the same handful of mistakes.

They underestimate operating expenses and overestimate rental cash flow. They lean too heavily on credit checks in the screening process, and don’t spend enough time checking on rental history with previous landlords or reliability with employers. And they don’t enforce their rental contracts when renters break the rules of the lease.

To be a successful landlord, you need to do better than other novices in the rental industry. Learn how to accurately budget for maintenance costs and major repairs, for vacancies and property damage. Aggressively stay on top of potential evictions — not because you enjoy it, but because you need to defend the boundaries of your lease to force good tenant behavior. Skip these expensive mistakes if you want to reliably earn positive cash flow.

Or skip them by investing passively in real estate instead.♦

What do you still want to know about how to become a landlord? What’s holding you back from becoming a landlord?

More Ideas to Help You Reach Financial Independence with Rentals!

Google has halted its plan to construct a fourth building for its Kirkland campus, according to a research report released Tuesday. 

The Broderick Group, which monitors commercial real estate in Seattle and Bellevue, noted the pause in its quarterly report of the Eastside office market. Google spokesperson Ryan Lamont did not confirm or deny the news but said Thursday, “We’re working to ensure our real estate investments meet the current and future needs of our hybrid workforce.” 

“Our campuses are at the heart of our Google community, and we remain committed to our long-term presence in Kirkland,” he said.

Google had planned a 760,000-square-foot campus with four buildings in Kirkland. It opened the north building in April 2021 and the second phase of the project in 2022 with a splashy eight-story building in Kirkland Urban that featured a dog lounge, movie theater and kitchenettes on almost every floor. At the time, it planned to open another building in 2023 and the last in 2025.

Now, Google has completed construction on the south building but has opted not to “build out the space” and to pause its plans for a fourth building in the complex, according to the report from the Broderick Group. 

Google also removed Tableau, a software company owned by Salesforce, from 120,000 square feet of space on its campus that Tableau had hoped to sublease. Google has also not built out that space, the Broderick Group said.

Lamont did not disclose how many employees Google currently has in Kirkland and how many had been slated for the fourth building that is now on pause. Google shed 12,000 jobs, or 6% of its workforce, in January 2023. The company also laid off hundreds of workers at the start of the year, though it’s not clear how those job cuts affected Google’s workforce in Seattle and Kirkland.

The Eastside office market overall has an 18.2% vacancy rate, compared to a rate of 5.7% in 2019, the report said. Tenant demand this year has exceeded the norm in the first quarter, the report said.

In the world of service businesses, your pricing model can significantly impact your business’s profitability and sustainability.

The most common types of service pricing strategies include hourly, project, value-based, and performance pricing.

Each strategy has unique merits and challenges, which we will explore in the following sections.

Hourly Pricing

Most people understand hourly pricing.

You provide a service and charge by the hour to complete it.

Advantages of Hourly Pricing

Hourly pricing is considered “fair” because you’re compensated based on your time on a project.

This strategy also allows for the flexibility to accommodate changes and additions to the project scope.

Disadvantages of Hourly Pricing

However, with hourly pricing, you can run into estimation difficulties, and it’s less predictable from a pricing model perspective (feast or famine).

Moreover, there’s only one hour in one hour. This presents challenges with scaling your business. You’ll always be trading hours for dollars.

Project Pricing

Project pricing is another common pricing model where you charge a set fee for a specific service or project.

Advantages of Project Pricing

Clients see Project pricing as attractive because it offers high predictability regarding cost.

They know exactly what they will pay at the outset, irrespective of the time you spend on the project.

Moreover, it allows you to leverage your efficiency; if you can complete the project faster than estimated, you can increase your effective hourly rate.

Disadvantages of Project Pricing

On the flip side, project pricing can be risky for service providers.

If the project requires more time and resources than initially estimated, it can affect your profitability.

Plus, it may lead to client disagreements if additional work is needed beyond the defined project scope, leading to (dreaded) scope creep.

Value-Based Pricing

Value-based pricing is a strategy where the perceived value of the service drives pricing rather than the actual service cost or market rate.

Advantages of Value-Based Pricing

One of the significant advantages of value-based pricing is its potential for high profitability.

If your service can deliver considerable value to your client, you can charge a premium price for it.

It shifts the focus from cost to the unique value you offer, allowing you to differentiate your services from competitors.

Disadvantages of Value-Based Pricing

However, one of the challenges with this pricing model is determining the value perception of your clients.

It requires a deep understanding of your clients and their willingness to pay for the value you provide.

Furthermore, it may be challenging to quantify the value of your service, especially for intangible benefits, which can lead to pricing disputes.

Performance-Based Pricing

Performance-based pricing is a strategy where your fees are directly linked to the results or performance your services deliver to the client.

Advantages of Performance-Based Pricing

The primary advantage of performance-based pricing is that it aligns the interests of the service provider and the client.

It creates a win-win situation where the provider is incentivized to deliver optimal results, and the client only pays for the achieved outcomes.

Additionally, this model can differentiate your services by demonstrating your confidence in delivering results, making your offer more attractive to potential clients.

Disadvantages of Performance-Based Pricing

However, the performance-based pricing model also comes with its share of challenges.

Firstly, defining what constitutes ‘performance’ can be tricky and can lead to disagreements.

Secondly, external factors beyond your control may impact the results.

Finally, this model can create cash flow instability, especially if payment is only made upon reaching certain performance milestones.

6. Never Make Housing Rules Involving Children

Several years ago, many property managers had policies such as “one bedroom for every child.”  If a single parent and a child shared a bedroom, for example, the property management would require them to lease a two-bedroom unit instead of a one-bedroom. Unfortunately, you can’t do this anymore, as it has since been ruled as discriminatory.

However, do not confuse this with local occupancy regulations. For example, some towns allow landlords to limit a two-bedroom apartment to four occupants.

Likewise, property managers can’t put families on one side of the apartment complex and people without children on the other.  Pets?  Sure.  Children?  No.

HUD has been aggressively pursuing discrimination cases for the last five years. In 2013, they launched a mobile app to help people report Fair Housing violations. They want to make an example of landlords and property managers, gain publicity for these cases, and win money in court.

Other Things You Can Do To Avoid A Hefty Fair Housing Lawsuit

Six situational tips won’t cut it. As a landlord, it’s your job to cover your behind as well as you can, and there are other things you can do to avoid a Fair Housing lawsuit, like:

Educate Yourself (And Your People)

If you’re a solo landlord, you must stay on top of fair housing law developments to avoid ugly surprises like lawsuits and complaints.  (Sidenote: You might also want to make life easier by using Spark Rental’s landlord app.)

If you have people on payroll, it’s also important to keep them in the loop. Remember, one mistake from one person can land your whole operation in hot water. 

Have Your Policies Lined Up

The first order of business in renting out is to get your policies in order and accordance with state and federal laws. The second order of business is applying them consistently across all tenants and applicants—no exemptions. 

This way, even if you are sued for Fair Housing discrimination, you can easily state that your policies are uniformly applied to everyone you deal with. However…

Always Consider Reasonable Accommodations

…there are instances where the law would call for reasonable accommodations. According to HUD, “a reasonable accommodation is a change, exception, or adjustment to a rule, policy, practice, or service that may be necessary for a person with disabilities to have an equal opportunity to use and enjoy a dwelling, including public and common use spaces, or to fulfill their program obligations.”

Reasonable accommodations include the following:

• • Installing ramps for wheelchair access
  • Modifying existing facilities for easier access by disabled persons
  • Allowing service or emotional support animals despite a “no pets” policy
  • Providing a reserved parking space close to the entrance for tenants with mobility impairments
  • Installing grab bars in bathrooms
  • Modifying kitchen cabinets for a tenant in a wheelchair
  • Allowing a tenant with PTSD to break their lease early without penalty if they need to move for treatment

However, as the word “reasonable” implies, there are limits. Again, as per HUD, you can deny any modifications that will cause you extensive financial or administrative burden. You can also deny a request if it’s not made by or on behalf of a disabled person. 

Document EVERYTHING

Though paperwork seems like a necessary evil, it’s a good friend when avoiding Fair Housing Lawsuits.

Always keep a detailed record of all interactions with tenants and applicants. Have them sign an official document if any decisions or concessions are made. Don’t leave things to chance here; always have a paper trail. 

Final Thoughts

Be very, very careful when advertising your rental unit and screening your rental applications. 

If there is even a suspicion that you may have rejected an application based on something other than their financial or credit history, expect a lawsuit.  If you show any inclination toward one group of applicants over another, expect a lawsuit.  Do not pass Go; do not collect $200.

So, apply these tips to avoid a Fair Housing lawsuit and save yourself from expenses and headaches. 

An increase in homes for sale across the Seattle area offered more choices to shoppers last month but brought little relief for the many buyers struggling with high costs and a still-tight market.

New single-family home listings climbed by 17% from February to March in King County and even more in some outlying areas, according to new data the Northwest Multiple Listing Service released Wednesday. New condo listings jumped 22% in King County, with the largest number of new condos hitting the market in one month since summer 2022.

Weary home shoppers may welcome that influx. Along with a typical spring pickup in home listings, Seattle is seeing an increase in newly constructed town homes hitting the market, some just finished and others that didn’t sell last fall, said John. L. Scott agent Kimberly Shaeffer. “All of a sudden, we have this really large influx of new-construction town homes,” she said.

Despite this increase, the overall supply of homes for sale remains slim compared to the market’s recent high years. The number of single-family homes newly listed for sale in King County last month was the lowest level for March in at least seven years. 

Stubbornly high interest rates are keeping many homeowners who scored low rates during the pandemic from listing their properties for sale. Mortgage rates averaged nearly 7% in late March, a bit lower than the peak last fall but still high enough to squeeze many people trying to afford a home and keep homeowners on the sidelines.

Without a bigger influx of homes for sale, the market is tightening as home shoppers emerge for the usual spring rush. At current levels of demand, it would take about a month to sell all the single-family homes for sale in King County, the shortest period in nearly two years.

Meanwhile, home prices are holding steady across the Puget Sound region, with a small uptick from February to March, and substantial increases compared to a year ago. 

In King County, the median sale price in March was $945,500, 13% higher than in March 2023. The median single-family home sold for $760,000 in Snohomish County, up 5% from a year ago; $550,000 in Pierce County, up 5%; and about $535,000 in Kitsap County, up 3%.

The median Seattle home sold for $925,000, up 6% year-over-year, and the median home on the Eastside sold for $1.7 million, up 19%. Home prices also climbed about 7% in South King County and 11% in North King County.

Last month, two Seattle-area cities — Snoqualmie and Bothell — last month joined Zillow’s list of “million dollar cities,” where the typical home is worth $1 million or more.

Condo prices were a bit more volatile: In King County, the median condo price in March, $540,000, was down slightly from a month earlier after jumping 11% from January to February. In Seattle, where condos include those in multifamily buildings and some accessory dwelling units that resemble small single-family homes, the median condo sold for $587,500. 

Still, some anxious buyers are enduring bidding wars and paying well over the list price for homes throughout the region.

In the first few months of this year, buyers “wanted to take advantage of getting in earlier,” said Jen Cameron, an agent with The Agency in Kirkland. “They thought, ‘Well, once [mortgage] rates come down even further, the market is going to be flooded, so I would rather take my shot.‘”

The number of pending single-family home sales picked up across the region in March, eclipsing last year in most areas. Pierce County is a bit of an outlier in the region, with sales volume still 12% lower than a year ago.

Between high mortgage rates and high home prices, today’s market continues to shut out many potential buyers and keep would-be sellers from letting go of their homes. Across the U.S. between 2000 and 2022, a homebuyer upgrading to a 25% more expensive house would have needed to boost their monthly payment by about 40%. Now, that same upgrade would more than double the buyer’s monthly payment, according to a national mortgage data tracker. 

To lower their monthly costs, some buyers are putting more money down — a tough prospect for middle-class and first-time homebuyers. The median down payment in the Seattle area in February was about $165,000, up 31% from a year earlier, according to Redfin. And nearly a quarter of home purchases were all cash.

“The developers and dirt buyers are back out in full force,” said Shaeffer, with John L. Scott in Seattle. More affordable homes are drawing cash buyers, she said, who “are back out there kind of swooping in and pushing out the first-time homebuyers.”

7 Steps to Build Credit Fast

All right, now that you understand how credit works, let’s explore the nuts and bolts of building your credit score.

Step 1: Check Your Credit Report & Fix the Errors

The credit bureaus process billions of transactions every single day. You’re smoking crack if you think they don’t make mistakes all… the… time.

And look, it’s not their responsibility to ensure your credit report is accurate. It’s yours.

So, check your credit report for errors before you do anything else. Once a year, you can pull your credit report for free from AnnualCreditReport.com—it’s mandated by federal law.

While it’s free once a year, it’s not a complete credit report. It doesn’t include your credit score and isn’t particularly user-friendly. And once a year isn’t enough if you’re looking to build good credit.

Fortunately, you can run your own credit report (and other background checks) using the tenant screening feature in our landlord app. Depending on whether you’re using a free or premium account, the report costs between $9 and $15 and includes your credit score and complete credit history.

What do you look for when you pull your credit report? Look first for accounts that aren’t yours or accounts that should be reported but aren’t.

Next, look for incorrect late payments. If you paid on time, but your payments are showing as late, you need to contact the credit bureaus to let them know.

Lastly, look for any negative public records (bankruptcies, liens, foreclosures, etc.) that aren’t yours.

Credit bureaus make mistakes, and you must fix them if you want to build your credit.

Step 2: Get a Credit Card If You Don’t Have One

Yes, many people abuse credit cards. In fact, the average household credit card debt is up to $6,295  as of the end of 2023. Ugly.

But to establish your credit history, you need to have some credit records reporting. As a first credit card, don’t expect to be approved for the ritziest cards with the best rewards. Your first priority is building credit, not rewards.

If you get turned down for a traditional credit card, you have two options:

1. Get a cosigner, such as a family member, to sign as a guarantor for your credit card or
2. Get a secured credit card.

Secured credit cards require a deposit from you as collateral against default. If you fail to pay them, they just take the collateral. Then, they ruin your credit by reporting your default to the credit bureaus.

Use your credit card sparingly. As a first credit card, just put one recurring monthly bill on it and set up recurring monthly payments to your card to cover it. That way, it’s all automated, and you don’t even need to remember to pay for it.

Later, you can get fancy, like using your credit cards to buy real estate or score free travel, but right now, you just want to establish a credit history to build credit fast.

Bonus Option: Become an Authorized Signer on Someone Else’s Card

One alternative to having someone else cosign your credit card is becoming an added signer on someone else’s credit card. The credit bureaus report the card balance and payments on your credit history, too.

Just make sure the person is responsible about paying their card on time every month, and don’t use them unless you have their express permission. Building your credit isn’t worth ruining relationships over!

Step 3: Get a Credit Builder Loan

One credit card isn’t cut it when you’re looking to build credit quickly. Remember, part of your credit score calculation is based on your mix of credit accounts.

So, open a credit builder loan as another type of credit account. “Loan” is a misleading term, as you’re the one who’s lending the money. It works like this: you agree to make a series of payments over a certain period, say $40 monthly for 18 months. The “lender” reports your payments as on time throughout the loan, and you get your money back at the end of the loan term.

Well, most of it, anyway. They keep a little for the trouble of reporting your payments to the credit bureau. There is no such thing as a free lunch, after all!

But as you look for how to build credit fast, credit builder loans offer another tool in your kit.

Step 4: Diversify Your Credit Types (To A Degree)

Diversifying your credit accounts can be a good way to increase your credit score. The reason is self-explanatory—if you can juggle multiple credit lines simultaneously without dropping any of them, you demonstrate the type of financial responsibility lenders want to see.

Here are some of the different credit types you can try:

However, you shouldn’t go gung-ho with your applications. You need to space them out in a reasonable time frame (which we’ll discuss later.)

Step 5: Ask for a Credit Line Increase

Remember how the credit bureaus look at the ratio of credit used to credit available?

For rotating lines of credit (like credit cards), you can improve this ratio simply by getting a higher credit limit. If you routinely put $1,000 on your credit card every month, but your credit limit is only $2,000, then you’re using 50% of your monthly limit. Bump the credit limit to $5,000; suddenly, you only use 20% of your monthly credit.

As you build your credit history, creditors will be more willing to raise your credit limits.

Step 6: Have Your Rent Payments Reported to the Credit Bureaus

If you’re a renter, one way to build credit fast is by reporting your rent payments to the credit bureaus.

Of course, you don’t have complete control over this. You’ll need to ask your landlord to collect rent using a service that reports your payments. But it helps them, too, since it serves as an additional incentive for on-time rent payments.

We’re preparing to add this feature to our online rent collection service – hint hint!

Step 7: Consider Credit Repair Services

While not everyone needs credit repair services, they can be an effective tool for improving your credit faster.

They’ll handle credit reporting errors and disputes for you and show you exactly what to do to boost your individual credit score. In some cases, they can even negotiate on your behalf with creditors.

If you’d rather get some assistance than go it alone, check out Credit America, a great example of a credit repair service.

Credit repair services work by reviewing your credit history with a fine-tooth comb and identifying discrepancies and inaccuracies, including unfair and unverifiable claims. The timeline for results can vary from thirty days for simple issues to longer for more complex ones.  

Sidenote: Any credit repair service that claims they can fix your credit score immediately is not to be trusted.

Pfizer’s closure of a Seagen plant in Everett will cost 119 workers their jobs in June, according to a notice released Wednesday by the state Employment Security Department.

The long-anticipated Seagen pharmaceutical manufacturing plant was nearing completion until Pfizer, the pharma giant that recently acquired Bothell-based Seagen, announced in March it would halt construction.

The 119 impacted employees were working on the setup of the site, according to Pfizer, which paid $43 billion to acquire Seagen in December. The oncology medicines Seagen intended to produce at the new plant will be manufactured in Pfizer’s North Carolina plant, “which will have increased capacity with ongoing expansion of the facility,” the biotech giant said in a statement.

“The expanded (North Carolina) site will have the technological capability and available capacity for the manufacturing of these essential products,” New York-based Pfizer said in a statement in March.

Laid-off employees can be placed at Seagen’s Bothell site or apply to roles within Pfizer, the company said.

Seagen, formerly known as Seattle Genetics, first announced the new 270,000-square-foot facility in April 2022. According to regulatory filings that year, the company expected to spend $350 million to $400 million building the facility. 

At the time of the announcement, Seagen said it expected to employ up to 200 highly skilled workers to produce cancer medicine for clinical trials and for the commercial market.

Seagen specializes in cancer treatments. The acquisition enhances Pfizer’s presence in the oncology market and contribute to its financial goals, Albert Bourla, Pfizer CEO, said in a statement in December.

Pfizer said it is considering selling the property.