Congratulations on deciding to purchase your first home! The home buying process is an exciting one and you most likely want to jump right in to searching for your perfect house. While it doesn’t hurt to look, there are some important financial considerations you need to make before landing on the house of your dreams.
Chances are, if you are like the majority of people, you will need to obtain a mortgage in order to buy a house. Going through the preapproval process before you begin looking at houses will help you to know how much house you can afford. When you are looking for a lender make sure to interview several. Ask questions about what programs they offer, along with their interest rates. Choose a lender that you will feel comfortable working with. …show more content…
Have a good credit score – Your credit score plays a major role in whether you are approved for a mortgage or not. If you are approved your credit score will also factor into the interest rate that you receive on your loan. The higher your credit score the better chance of approval with a low interest rate. If you have a low credit score you run the risk of being declined for a loan.
When you first start thinking about wanting to buy a house you need to check your credit report. It is not uncommon for people to find errors on their report. It can takes months to have these errors removed. Start the process early so your credit report is clean and ready when you apply for a mortgage. You will also want to find out your credit score so you can see if you need to start working on bringing the score up.
If you need to improve your credit score the critical steps are going to be (1) make payments on time (2) pay any old debts and (3) pay down on