Mortgage lenders will perform a check to determine if your recent credit experiences reflect timely payments.
Your payment history toward items, such as credit cards, auto loans, mortgage loans and other records from Experian, TransUnion and Equifax will be reviewed.
Ideally, your credit report should reflect no late payments during the past 12 to 24 months. Although, you might still be able to get pre-approved for a mortgage loan through certain programs with a few minor credit delinquencies.
Checking your credit prior to contacting a mortgage lender enables you to ensure that your information is accurately reporting to the major credit bureaus.
You can check your credit report online via the Annual Credit Report website.
For any information that is erroneous, you can contact the specific bureau to dispute a variety of items, such as a wrong address, items that you are not aware of and about removing or modifying inaccurate accounts.
Lenders will also check your credit score before issuing a mortgage pre-approval.
Credit scores can range between 300 and 850 points.
Typically, a minimum credit score of 620 points is required to obtain consideration for government-backed loan programs through the Federal Housing Administration and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
Many conventional loan programs also require mortgage loan applicants to have a 620-credit score or higher.
A borrower might be pre-approved for a mortgage loan with a lower credit score than the aforementioned scores. However, higher credit scores generally provide more favorable terms.