I have been thinking about this for awhile, but Im about 3 to 4 years out on getting my first house. <BR> <BR>As far as credit goes. <BR>I have had a credit card for two years that I have never missed a payment, and I always pay off every month. I get my experian score every quarter and its mid 700's. My CC company just uped my limit, almost 11 times more then I originally had. <BR> <BR>My question is, with a good down payment (25%+)and good income can I qualify add excellant mortgage rates with just a CC on my credit report?

When we bought our first house we were told its best to be able to show 4 lines of credit with at least one year of payments. Like a car, rent, even finance a tv or something like that to show a credit history as well as never missing payments.

try and purchase something around 8-10K range and pay it off in a few months or within a year. Good to show youve paid off something big. YOuve got everything else covered though

Tings, how long ago was that?

I am a believer of the Dave Ramsey teachings and am currently doing his 'Total Money Makeover' plan. <BR> <BR>In his book he says that you don't need to buy on credit and pay it off to build your credit score in order to get a good rate on a home loan. He says that it is yet another money myth that many people have become to believe as true. You can probably google it, but if you aren't finding anything I can quote the page from his book where he talks about it...in short he says that if you've had the same job for 2 years, don't have much debt, and have a good mortgage broker you can get a good interest rate. <BR> <BR><a href="http://www.daveramsey.com" target="_blank">www.daveramsey.com</a> <BR> <BR>btw - we recently bought our first home. We got a great (4.75 fixed @ 30 years) interest rate and we hadn't used our credit card for a good 10-12 months prior to getting the loan approved. <BR> <BR>(Message edited by jetskiprosx on February 25, 2010)

As long as your score is high enough to qualify(which is sounds like it is), then it doesn't matter how many CCs you have on your report as long as your Debt to income is ok. DO NOT go purchase something large with the card you have. Rates are driven off of your score. Usually anything above 740 means you can get conventional financing. With the large down payment you have, you can also buy down the rate.

Ryan, that was probably 5 years ago. Go find one of those no interest for 12 months deals and buy something around a $1000. We did 12 payments on a $500 video camera and that seemed to make them happy as well. We had great credit as well at the time just not a long credit history

When I bought my 1st condo, my credit wasn't stellar and I made a small down payment. I got a mediocre rate and had to pay mortgage insurance. That was only for one year, and I was easily able to refi a year later for an excellent rate and drop the insurance. So if you really want to buy right now and can afford it, you may not need to worry about the rate too much as long as you can afford whatever payments you'll have initially.

In 3 - 4 years interest rates will be through the roof, but home values will be really low so it should work out.

<b>...Debt to income...</b> <BR> <BR>Bingo, and that magic number just went down...

41% max to qualify for PMI.