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Is my credit score the thing that decides whether I get a mortgage?

No. Your score is a summary. The file underneath it is what gets read.

A credit score compresses years of history into one number. The number only decides whether your file is worth a lender's time — what is inside the file decides the answer.

Two people with the same score can get opposite answers, because the file says different things. One has a single medical collection from four years ago. The other has three late payments in the last eight months. The number does not know the difference. The underwriter does.

This is why "what's your score?" is the wrong first question — and why a lender who only asks that one is not the lender you want.

Is there a minimum credit score to buy a house?

There is a floor, but it is not one number. It moves by loan type, and then it moves again by lender.

Different loan programs tolerate different credit. Government-backed programs generally allow lower scores than conventional financing. That part is published.

What is not published is the overlay — an individual lender's internal rule, stricter than the program requires. A lender can say no to a file the program itself would have allowed. That is their right, and it is why a no from one lender is not a no from the market.

Do old credit problems still count against me?

Less than recent ones. Recent matters more than old, and patterns matter more than events.

A single bad stretch that ended three years ago reads very differently from a steady drip of recent late payments. Time heals a file in a way that paying it off does not — a collection that is paid still happened, and the date it happened is doing most of the work.

This is the part that frustrates people the most, and it is also the part that most rewards waiting a specific, known length of time rather than an unknown one.

How long after a bankruptcy or foreclosure can I buy?

There is a clock, and most people measure it from the wrong date.

Waiting periods exist. They differ by loan type and by what happened, and there are circumstances that shorten them.

What trips people up is the starting point. The clock usually runs from a specific legal date — a discharge, a sale, a transfer — not from the day the trouble started and not from the day you felt recovered. People regularly believe they are a year further along than the file says, or a year behind when they are actually eligible now.

What can I actually do to improve my credit quickly?

Less than most advertising suggests. Some things move fast. Most things do not.

The fastest-moving part of a score is usually how much of your available credit you are using. Balances report on a cycle, so a change there can show up relatively quickly.

Almost everything else — age of accounts, payment history, the weight of a derogatory item — moves slowly or not at all on demand. Be suspicious of anyone who tells you otherwise for a fee.

Two things that regularly backfire:

• Closing old accounts. It feels like cleaning up. It can shorten your history and raise your utilization at the same time.
• Opening a dispute in the middle of an application. A disputed item can stall a file in underwriting. There is a right time for a dispute, and the middle of a loan approval is usually not it.

What does REAL Solutions do about credit, and what do we not do?

We do not repair credit. This is a real estate brokerage, licensed since 2004. We are not a credit repair company, we are not credit counselors, and we do not charge anyone to work on their credit.

What we do is introduce. When someone needs credit counseling, we introduce them to people who do that work. When someone needs a lender who reads the file rather than the number, we introduce them to lenders we have watched do exactly that.

Two rules we hold ourselves to on every introduction:

1. If a referral pays us, we tell you it pays us. Before you talk to them, not after.
2. Where there are several good options, you get several — usually three — and you choose. Comparing three people and picking the one who fits is a better process than being handed one name.

What if the answer is that I should not buy yet?

Then we say so, and we try to say when.

If the right answer is that buying a home or an investment property this year would hurt you, we will say so, and we will try to say when instead of just no. A date you can work toward is worth more than an approval that costs you the property eighteen months later.

We would rather talk someone out of a bad purchase and have them come back in two years than put somebody into a payment that breaks them. That is not modesty. It is how this practice stays in business.

REAL Solutions LLC · Steven J. Buysman, Responsible Broker · Licensed since 2004 · Sioux Falls, South Dakota
Buyer representation only. Brokerage services offered in South Dakota.
Nothing on this page is an offer, a solicitation, lending advice, credit repair, or legal advice.