I’m back with JC Diaz of Movement Mortgage to bring hope to those first-time buyers fretting about ugly credit scores or having no credit at all.
Unless you’re planning on using cash to purchase your first home, you’ll need good credit. The first step of healing your credit wounds is to know exactly where you stand—you won’t know what strategies to implement if you don’t grasp the degree of your situation.
That means going into a lender’s office, like JC’s, reviewing your credit report, and then identifying all of the opportunities to make that credit better so that you’re in a position to obtain financing.
What if the buyer doesn’t have a credit score at all? Movement Mortgage has programs that can help folks finance without any type of credit. If credit is needed, then JC recommends going to a local bank and taking out what’s known as a secured card, which is typically a credit card that requires a deposit. This will have a monthly report attached to it, so it helps you build credit history within three to six months.
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There are many things that could weigh someone’s credit down, but what JC and his team look at most is credit utilization.
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Movement Mortgage also has a program called the No Score Financing program, in which three non-traditional lines of credit —water, electric, or even internet bills, and rental history—are assessed as qualifiers for financing.
There are many things that could weigh someone’s credit down, but what JC and his team look at most is credit utilization, or, the percentage of available credit that someone has used already. Oftentimes, JC advises people to pay down certain accounts to help them gain points back on their score. Paying down accounts is a fairly quick process, but it takes discipline.
Movement Mortgage professionals help folks create a plan to make their credit utilization healthier and encourage them to stick with that plan.
If you have additional questions about the information covered in today’s message, or would like to get connected with JC and the Movement Mortgage team, feel free to call or email me. I would love to help you with whatever I can, and get you in touch with JC, too.