Getting a mortgage

[ajzjmsmom]

I recently retired and after living on the US/MX border for 25 years we are moving to TN the beginning of March.  We want to buy a house and after running several of the "how much can I afford" calculators, with a gross monthly income of $5070, it looks like we could qualify for a mortgage of about $235.    I was able to pay off all my debt the beginning of Jan and as of Monday had myfico scores of : EQ 752, TU 708 and EX 724.  We have talked to a mortgage lender and he doesn't think we will have to much trouble getting a 5% down conventional loan.  How long should it take for the credit bureaus to show the 0 balances, we want to wait until they show that before letting him run the credit?

[ShanetheMortgageMan]

Creditors usually just report once a month to the credit bureaus.  You can call up the creditor and ask what date they report the balance to the credit reports, and that would be the easiest way.  If you just missed it, like it's going to be another 20-25 days or so, then sometimes creditors can do what is called an "off cycle" reporting where they report the current balance.  It usually takes them a couple days to do that.  Not all creditors offer that option, but it's worth asking.