Want to buy a house? get your credit score up to date

Get your credit score up to date to buy a house, and it’ll benefit you financially in other ways. Your credit score helps lenders and other financial institutions assess the risk you pose when making an offer, so if you get a better mortgage rate as a result, that’s a savings of about 4 percent on the down payment. Furthermore, if you can clear the credit bar, you’ll be able to boost your creditworthiness, which can lead to better interest rates in the long run.

So don’t wait until you’re approved to take steps to improve your credit. Keep a credit card open and make automatic payments for all other creditors. You might also look into getting a separate credit card, so you can use that to boost your score. Or, if you’re interested in a financial product like an auto loan, ask for a credit line boost when you’re pre-approved.

Mortgage lenders look into your credit score to determine how risky a loan you’re qualified for. However, if you have bad credit, you might still be able to get a mortgage. Sometimes the mortgage lender will accept a score from a credit bureau like Experian or Equifax, which are both members of the Big Three credit bureaus.

However, your mortgage lender should generally avoid accepting a credit score from smaller credit agencies. These types of lenders tend to have a larger amount of mortgages on their books and won’t necessarily offer you an in-house mortgage credit score, even though they do, with their own lending arms, be accepting different credit bureaus.

Ways to boost your credit score are endless. While you shouldn’t spend more than you’re earning or use debt to do so, you might want to start working on repairing your credit. If you can work on your credit and keep it at a decent rate for a while, you’ll have a brighter financial future ahead of you.

If you need help with your credit or with your money contact us to see how we can help you.