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An FHA or VA loan will typically require a credit score in the 600s.  A conventional loan will become possible at higher scores – the minimum will depend on other factors like down payment and debt-to-income ratio.  The lowest possible score however is 620. We check credit scores with Experian, Equifax and Experian and use…

A common misconception is that you’ll need a 20% down payment to receive mortgage financing for a home purchase.  You can actually get a loan with as low as 3.5% down, or 0% down if you are a VA eligible veteran.   Specifically for first time buyers, there are actually programs based on the city…

Full report here: http://www.fhfa.gov/webfiles/16591/ConservatorsRpt82610.pdf   FHFA, linked above, wrote a report on the state of Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac.  Here are some interesting pieces of it.  All data is from Fannie Mae’s stats:   1. This year’s average credit score is 758 versus 716 in 2007. 2. 8% of loans are less than 10% down.…

Want to put less than 5 or 10% down?  You’re likely going to get an FHA loan.  Due to increased risk of defaults, HUD earlier this year increased its upfront mortgage insurance premium (MIP) from 1.75 to 2.25%.  Now, starting in October, they are increasing the annual premium while decreasing the upfront premium.  This is…

I just read this article that said out of the last 8 weeks, 7 of these weeks showed record lows for mortgage rates.  Granted, these are small drops, but it just goes to show how far rates have fallen.  I’m seeing 30 year fixed rates in the range of 4.25-4.75%.  15 year rates are just below…