Home Loans ? Factors Used To Determine Your Credit Score

Posted by Nick Niesen on October 29th, 2010

Credit scores are a major issue when it comes to getting a home loan. Following is a discussion of how said credit scores are determined.

Home Loans ? Factors Used To Determine Your Credit Score

If you want to borrow hundreds of thousands of dollars for the purchase of a home, you are going to have to put up with some scrutiny. Your credit history, blemishes and all, is going to be front and center. Since we have all missed payments at one time or another, this can be a frightening prospect. Will one missed credit card payment result in your loan being denied? Probably not. There are five factors used to evaluate your score.

Payment history is by far the most important factor in determining your credit score. 35 percent of your score will be based on this factor. Meeting your debt payments in a timely manner will help your score. Making late payments will do the opposite. Lawsuits, judgments and tax liens are killers. Also, the size of the payment is taken into account. When in doubt, pay higher debt obligations before lower ones.

The balance on your debt obligations is another significant factor in your score. In a perfect world, you want to have a lot of credit available without actually owing any money. Since this is not a perfect world, you should try to keep the total amount you owe below thirty percent of the total credit available. If you have twenty thousands in available credit, you want to actually owe less than six thousand. This factor accounts for 30 percent of your credit score.

The length of credit is also a factor in your FICO score. The longer you have held individual credit accounts, often credit cards, the better. Importantly, you also need to show a history of actually using the credit. Oddly, lenders discount credit if it has never been used. The time you have had credit accounts for roughly 15 percent of your score.

The type of credit is also a facto in your FICO score, accounting for about ten percent. Credit cards are okay, but lenders like to see more formal obligations. This can be a car loan, student loan or previous mortgage. If you have a history with non-credit card debt, it is vital that you met every monthly payment obligation on the debt.

Inquiries also are factored into your FICO score, to the tune of ten percent. A lender is looking at inquiries over a 6 month period. Each one you initiated by applying for credit can ding your score, so make sure to avoid applying for credit for six months before seeking a mortgage.

It is vital that you order credit reports before applying for a mortgage. The credit reporting companies are often fined by the government for massive errors on reports. In fact, as many as fifty percent of all credit reports may have erroneous entries. Make sure yours is clean before applying for a loan.