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You may need credit help when you start looking at houses to buy. What do you do if you have bad credit and want to buy real estate? How do you improve your credit? Should you pay off your credit cards? The article below discusses these issues, and explains why, unlike when you buy a car, credit means something else when it comes to buying a new home.
Credit Help: Buying Real Estate
-- Not the Same as Buying Cars
By Jeanette Joy Fisher
Credit for Buying Real Estate is Different than Credit for Buying Cars
Forget what you've been told about credit.
You may be shocked at some of these tips because this information runs contrary to what other so called experts tell you. Qualifying for a real estate purchase requires different credit than automobile financing or retail credit.
Common Credit Myths
1. You need to pay off your credit cards
2. You need to close credit accounts
3. You need perfect or good credit to buy a house
Credit Facts
1. Paying off your credit cards lowers
your credit score
2. Closing credit accounts lowers your credit score
3. You don't need perfect credit to buy real estate
Why not pay off credit cards? Because paid off credit cards do not compute in your credit score. Real estate lenders like to see open, active accounts with low balances.
Why not close accounts? Closing accounts before the payoff often costs consumers more money because credit card companies raise interest on closed accounts.
You can buy real estate with poor credit, but you will save thousands in loan costs if you maintain good credit. A bad credit report leaves home buyers with sub-prime loans which have higher point charges, prepayment penalties, and higher interest charges, which therefore cost more money. For instance, a mortgage loan of $150,000, 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage, interest rate of about 5.72 percent costs around $870 a month; poor credit scores raise the interest rate over 9 percent and the payments over $1,200.
As you see from these payment differences, good credit means that you can finance a more expensive house with the same income, or save $330 each month.
Credit Requirements for Mortgages
Credit needed to buy real estate is not the same as good credit. Besides your credit score, mortgage lenders consider your debt-to-income ratio and other credit matters, unlike other credit grantors. Your
Understanding the difference between good credit and the credit needed to obtain real estate financing helps you buy houses.
(c) Copyright 2004, Jeanette J. Fisher. All rights reserved.
Professor Jeanette Fisher, author of Doghouse to Dollhouse for Dollars, Joy to the Home, and other books teaches Real Estate Investing and Design Psychology. For more articles, tips, reports, newsletters, and sales flyer template, see http://www.doghousetodollhousefordollars.com
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/
Houses Under Fifty Thousand | Credit Help When Buying A House