How long until our credit score is good enough to buy a house?

We really need to upgrade to a bigger house. Recently our family expanded to 4 kids in a 3 bedroom house. Our credit hasn't been the greatest, but in the past month we have taken care of any outstanding debt on our credit reports, caught up on our current house payment (we were one month behind), paid off half of our one credit card bill and will be timely on all payments, and are current on all other finances. How long will it take for our credit scores to start improving enough to qualify for a home loan?|||What type of home loan do you want? If you don't have a lot of money down you will need good credit.





Since you have already proven to a bank that Being One month behind is a possibility it will take 24 on time payments in a row before any bank will even consider lending to you. If you want to get a "Prime" loan then it will be more like 60 on time payments.





Mortgage lender weigh late payments differently. For example if you were late paying your $100.00 per month Furniture payment a bank will figure you "forgot" to send the payment, but they will never assume you "Forgot" to mail in your payment on your primary residence...





SDGuy|||Keep up paying on time EVERY time for the next 6 months and your scores will rise.|||eliminated all unessaray spending


pay all bills on time, pay more than min. premium on all debts


over 6 months your credit will improve|||It really depends on how bad your credit is and how much of a down payment you'll have for the new house. If you have a larger down payment you won't need as high credit scores. It usually takes several months of constant paying on time to really improve your score. Also, that late mortgage payment will probably be an issue, since it will mean that you are a larger risk for paying late on your mortgage in the future. That will at least need to be 6 months in the past for lenders to look past it in granting you a mortgage.Continue paying on time and save some money for a down payment (you won't be able to get 100% financing) over the next several months to a year and once you have a score over 650 and a low debt to income ratio you'll have a decent shot at getting a mortgage. Any score below that and you'll either not get approved or have an incredibly high interest rate. Good luck