Mortgages with Low credit scores.
Having a low credit score can be caused be a variety of factors. It could be debt/credit agreements you have had in the past that have gone bad and ended up in a default. It could be you have utilised a lot of debt and have several amounts owing to different lenders across a series of credit cards, store cards or loans. You may have several credit cards that run very close to their borrowing limit each month. It can be a number of factors and quite difficult to pin point the exact reason you have a low credit score.
You can try and improve a low credit score by reducing debt and closing old accounts that you no longer use so as to limit the amount of open credit that you have. Ensuring you do not miss any payment over time will also help improve a low credit score but there is no exact way of gauging how long this will take to improve your score enough to make the vital difference between an accept or a decline from a lender.
Can I get a mortgage with a low credit score? Or had a offer accepted and need a mortgage with low credit score?
The simple answer is yes, there are two ways in which lenders check potential a borrower’s credit report: credit scoring and credit searching. They both sound the same but they are not. Lenders that use a credit scoring system often generate their own internal score using a variety of factors taken from your credit profile, the amount of deposit that you have, what you earn, how much debt you currently have and the type of application being made. If these factors arrive at a suitable internal score then the lenders decision will generally be an accept, if not the application for credit will be declined.
If you have a low credit score this does not mean you are not worthy to lend to, there may be justifiable reasons for credit blips on a report and subsequently this will result in a low credit score. You may have suffered a job loss, redundancy, illness or something else outside of your control. Luckily there are lenders that understand that this can happen to anyone at some stage in their life. These lenders will generally not use an internal scoring system and instead they will conduct a credit search.
Lenders that use credit searching are more interested in credit events and have a more flexible approach in their attitude to these events than just judging you on how your report might score out of 1000. Quite often these more flexible lenders will take a manual approach to a decision as long as there is rationale and reasoning and time behind a credit event.
Obtain a credit report
It is essential View Finance’s specialist mortgage advisors have access to your credit report. They need to see what any lender is going to see before approaching them to perform a credit search. Sometimes there are errors on a credit profile that will result in a decline from a lender. We would recommend using a website such as Check My File as they cross reference the 4 major credit agencies. This way the advisor can see why the score is low and work out which lenders will consider you.
What are my next steps?
Simple, once you have obtained a credit report make an enquiry.
View Finance have specialist mortgage advisors who know the ins and outs of obtaining a mortgage with a low credit score, knowing which lenders to approach and more importantly which lenders not to approach. They will guide you through the application process and ensure that you have the best chance possible of obtaining the right mortgage for your individual circumstances.