How to Find Mortgage Financing

You and your significant other have found the perfect home, but getting the mortgage financing may be a lot trickier than you thought.

It may be time to head down to your local Starbucks at midday and ask one of the many people popping antacids and leafing through online job search sites -- one of them could be your mortgage broker.

"I've been in this business more than 25 years and I've never seen conditions so bad," says Richard Scholtz, a Seattle mortgage broker. "A few years ago we had 40 loan officers, now we're down to six."

Home loans, which anyone could get with just a pulse a few short years ago, are now parceled out carefully by banks that are scrutinizing potential borrowers as though they were adoptive parents.

"I've pulled six credit reports in the past two weeks, and there's only one I can work with," says Sholtz. "These are people with good incomes, stable job histories, but either their scores are too low or, more likely, their debt ratio is too high."

So you think that credit card indiscretion from your college days is long gone and forgotten right? After all, the collection calls stopped a few years ago. What you may not know is that bad credit listings can stick to your credit reports for seven years or more, popping up when you apply for big items like a mortgage. The majority of loan brokers can help you if your score average is at least 620. The subprime mortgage market has left the building, but if you're below 620 and above 560, you may be able to buy with an FHA or VA government loan.