Your mortgage application will be considered for approval based on the following questions: How high is your credit score? What type of information is in your credit history? What is your combined income? How many outstanding debts do you have? How much is your down payment?

Giving a large down payment may hide some of the negative credit history or a low credit score. Just get ready to pay above average interest and fees for the term of your mortgage.

Unfortunately, you will need a good credit score to purchase a home. A huge down payment will not hide a low credit score.

In order to qualify for the lowest interest rates, you need a minimum credit score of 758, according to CNN.com

Now, more than ever, it is important to have a good credit score to qualify for the best rates. The credit crisis has forced the mortgage companies to raise the minimum credit score, within the last 12-18 months.

How to Obtain the Minimum Credit Score for a Mortgage

Your credit score can be a very confusing topic. However, if you focus simply on removing any bad credit information, you can make good progress.

The “experts” claim that you cannot remove derogatory information from your report. They want you to believe that there is no way to raise a low score without waiting for the bad credit to automatically disappear ” often taking 7-10 years.

However with minimal effort you can obtain your report and see exactly what is there. Often there will be mistakes or errors that you can dispute before the 7-10 year period.

You can start to correct the errors by writing a dispute letter to the credit bureau. Another option is working with the original creditor to fix the mistake.

Sometimes, a professional credit dispute letter will expedite a resolution. However, investigation methods can be sloppy and filled with errors.

This is because some credit bureaus don’t want to spend the time or resources to investigate the dispute. It is simply more cost effective to ignore or delay your dispute.

They want you to just live with the cost of having bad credit, and hope that you will give up on your dispute. This frustration causes some people to hire credit repair services to take over the dispute process.

How much Time Will it Take to Raise my Low Credit Score

A frequent concern is how long will it take to improve a low credit score. Although every persons situation is unique, if you are looking for a fairly drastic improvement, then you should expect anywhere between 6 to 12 months before you report is clean.

This is nothing compared to waiting seven to ten years for the negative information to disappear from your credit report. It will be well worth the 6 to 12 month wait needed to raise your credit score, so you can purchase a home.

Discover how lexington law helped a local couple get approved for a mortgage despite having bad credit. Visit their blog www.creditforcouples.com to find out how they deleted charge offs and collection items. You can also grab a free credit repair form or call 1-866-246-7311 for a free consultation.