What do you need to have on your credit to be able to get a loan for a home?

Contrary to popular belief, you do not need to have had a previous loan to buy a home. If you have credit cards and have been paying them on time you are showing that you are not a high risk candidate for a loan.

Ideally your cards should not have balances higher than 8% to 15% of the total credit available to you. You also should not have periods where this amount fluctuates wildly. Buying a wide screen TV and paying it off in 3 to 6 months is good. Having a maxed out situation for 2 years is bad. This is what the banks will look at since you don't have previous loan experience.

The question you should be asking is, how much can I put down? Here you will want to show the bank you are serious. Without previous loan experience 10% would say you are serious. However, 15 to 20% would be a slam dunk. In the light of no-money-down loans going up in smoke lately, you would be a beakon of hope.

Believe it or not, if you have 10-12% ready to put down and you have excellent credit history as I described above, you will be any loan officers wet dream. People like that are few and far between right now. Especially during a recession.

Sounds like your credit record is good. Depending on how much you're putting down, how much you're borrowing and how much you make you'll probably qualify for a loan if the above numbers qualify. You don't have to have previous debt to qualify for a loan. Your credit card activity will help.

You should be okay. You will need to get a credit report pulled to verify. That's one way credit cards are good - they allow you to establish credit!

You'll want to speak with an experienced, direct lender. They can walk you through the whole qualification process. Do you have a down payment?

I'll include a couple links to help you out...

Yes. I am in essentially the same situation and had a credit score of at least 780 (out of 850) when I last checked.

Probably. Have you checked your credit reports?