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Buying or Selling a Home/1st time buyer, bad credit

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Question
I had heard that buying a home isn't as hard as it seems and that anyone can get a mortgage, it's just a different in interest rates between poor credit/good credit.  Is this true?  My credit score is about 590 or so and my husband has no credit at all.  I'm just wondering what our chances of homeownership are anytime soon and what kind of downpayment we would need with our credit situation.

Thanks.

Answer
Dear Amy;
You should give a lender a call and see what is available for you.  Loans that are riskier charge higher interest rates and are called C paper or D paper loans.  It may make it unaffordable to buy a home, but you can see what the lender says.  There are no hard and fast rules.  Private banks may set up different guidelines that other lending institutions.  A mortage broker may have hundreds of programs from which to choose so shop around.  There can even be some government assited programs available to you.  If you have bad credit but have some good recent history this can help you but if you have had recent late payments, the lender may not look as favorably on your bad credit.  If you haven't discussed your credit history with a lender yet, you should.  He or she may give you some good insight on what to do, how to clean up some of the credit blemishes, and perhaps even improve your credit rating within a few weeks.  This takes work on your part, but could save you thousands of dollars in interest rates.  I think that a little effort, phone calls, and letter writing is worth it!

Sincerely,
Jessica Bryan

Buying or Selling a Home

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Jessica Bryan

Expertise

buying and selling process such as:
General questions from first time buyers
How to market a home
Why choose a REALTOR
How do I find a REALTOR
Should I consider buying or selling without a REALTOR--how much can I save
Should I remodel or move
How much can I expect to gain by fixing up my home before selling
Helpful tips when selling
Helpful tips when buying
finding a good mortgage loan
what is the difference between banks, mortgage bankers, and mortgage brokers
Questions from the general public, people thinking about getting their real estate license, newly licensed.
Fellow professionals who have interests in networking and how to get started
What is a market evaluation and how does it differ from an appraisal what are the different loan programs
services a REALTOR can perform
when to use a lawyer
when to use escrow
what are the regional differences in the buying and selling process
what is the MLS and how does it work
how can the layman access information on the web--listings and other information
These are just a few of the questions. I can suggest that if I am unable to answer a question I will refer the inquiry to a source that can.

Experience

Anyone who is in this business and who dedicates oneself to professionalism has continued to take classes and along with it,additional credentials, awards and honors. I can list a host of them, but my greatest accomplishments happen to be those of getting first time buyers (who didn't think they could afford to buy a home)into a home of their dreams. The look on their faces when I hand over the keys is worth all of the hard work.

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