
Your credit score can determine how much house you can afford. Find out in this video on buying a home.
All Videos In The Series, "Income, Credit & Home Loans: Buying a House"
"Hello, my name is Brett Staggs, and on behalf of Expert Village, I'm going to be telling you how much you can afford for a first time home buyer. When applying for your first home loan, and you're trying to figure out how much house you can actually afford, a huge factor, in fact one of the biggest factors that's going to come in to play is your credit score. Your credit score is going to come in the form of three numbers, and what a bank is going to do, they're going to take the middle, or your mid-score, is what they call it. That's the number they're going to use for your qualification. Now as the market changes for housing, a minimum score could be 620, could be 600, or could be 650, depending on how the market's going. So be sure you speak with whoever you're working with for your loan, and ask the hey, as far as the market's going right now, what is the minimum mid- score that is acceptable right now for a home loan? Based on that number, then you can get a better idea of okay this is the type of loan I'm going to be able to qualify for, or this is the type of loan I'm not going to be able to qualify for, and here are the things I need to do to improve my credit score like open up a simple credit card, or start another line of credit, whatever it might be, get another phone, you could start getting cable television, whatever it might be because each time you add a new liability to your credit your score will actually increase and get better. So, just keep that in mind and be sure to ask whoever you're working with about the credit score situation in the market currently."
eHow Personal Finance Editor