We don’t need to—and shouldn’t—walk into a mortgage lender’s office with no idea of the kind and size of a loan we can qualify for. This is a case where initial homework will serve us extremely well.


There are two areas we need to study. The first is our own credit-worthiness: We need to look at what the lenders will look at. 

This means we need to pull up a credit report or, better, three reports, one each from the three major credit-reporting agencies. We need further to see the credit scores these agencies have come up for us by crunching the data we’re now looking at.

This is easily done for about $16 by going to www.MyFico.com on the Internet and ordering the needed data. It should be checked for accuracy. Mistakes in the credit reports can be corrected by dealing with the agency involved. And it is possible, with the help of a mortgage professional and a real estate professional, to maximize your credit score—though you’ll probably need at least six months to do a good job of it.

The second area of study is the range of mortgage loans that are currently available, how they work, and which will work best for you. Again, you can receive invaluable help in this task, but it comes down to your own work—because you will want to rely on your own judgment here to end up with the best financing for your specific needs.