The importance of knowing what is a good credit score has become a much more visible topic of discussion since the subprime mortgage mess started this summer. As background information, subprime loans are the loans given to borrowers who credit bureaus consider to have relatively poor credit histories.



However, most mortgages were only offered to fully qualified, \"prime\" borrowers who could afford to re-pay them normally. It is astonishing that such a tiny section of the huge $10 trillion dollar American home loan market could cause such a worldwide impact. But even more astonishing is the pain this backlash caused ordinary people and the 10 percent slide in the U.S. stock market that resulted.





The money available to people with poor financial histories has dried up as a result of many subprime lenders being forced to go out of business. A number of people who were planning large purchases therefore went to check their credit scores to see if they could still qualify for a loan. Due to the subprime mess, many of these people were disappointed to find out that they had suddenly become ineligible.



Credit bureaus have been flooded with requests for credit reports and help improving them. The positive development from the subprime loan debacle is that people are beginning to pay more attention to the repercussions of their financial histories, and credit bureaus are making this information more available.



Most loans, however, were only offered to those who could afford to pay them back, so it is troubling how the obscure subprime section of the $10-trillion U.S. mortgage market could have caused such worldwide havoc in the credit markets. But, it did, and along with a very sharp 10% correction in the domestic stock market, the pain this development caused was real and so were the losses.



The fallout of the subprime loan collapse is expected to last for at least two years, according to most financial experts estimations. The Federal Reserve bank has, however, recently made adjustments to the interest rate at which it loans money to banks, which should help the economy curb the impact of the subprime loan disaster and the turmoil it caused in the credit markets. Experts are also predicting that the Fed will cut interest rates in order to encourage consumer spending and to make loans more inviting for qualified borrowers.