The Wall Street Journal - If you’re looking for a new 30-year mortgage, last week’s events from the financial markets carry a very simple message: Get ‘em cheap while you still can.

Rates on conforming 30-year loans jumped dramatically in just a few days, ending the week at an average of 5.27% according to Bankrate.com. That’s still OK by historic standards, but it’s a jump from the levels seen just a few weeks ago, when you could get loans at 4.75% or below.

The underlying cause isn’t hard to find. Rising government debts, and burgeoning hopes of an economic recovery, are pushing up long-term interest rates on government debt. The yield on the 10-Year Treasury, which was barely 2% near the end of last year, surged to 3.67% late last week before settling back slightly. And that, in turn, pushes up rates on other long-term loans.

———————————–

———————————–

What does this mean for you?

Your credit history has a giant impact on the mortgage that you get and the terms that it will have。 Lenders will go over your entire history with a fine-toothed comb. They will focus on your credit report, and your credit score. Your credit report is where all of the details concerning how you handle credit is kept.

This report will show any debts that you have had in the past years and how, when and if you have paid them according to schedule on time every month. This report will also show if you have ever filed for bankruptcy. Your credit score is derived from the information on your credit report. The lender will have a formula that they use in order to find your exact score. Some lenders use a slightly different formula for their own purposes. Your credit score will tell the lender whether or not they should trust you with a loan of any size. These scores range from around 300 to 900 and most people fall somewhere in the middle of these two numbers.

Your credit score is come to by putting together several different factors. The lender will look at how well you have been at paying your debts on time. If you have a habit of paying your bills late each month this will hurt your credit score tremendously and the worse your credit score is the worse the terms of your loan will be.

If you have had credit for a long time this looks good on your credit report and will help your credit score, assuming of course that you have been responsible with your credit. And the more available credit that you have the better you will look to lenders. If you have maxed out all of your credit they might think that you are too close to being unable to pay off your debts therefore less likely to be able to pay them back according to schedule.

Before you apply for a mortgage or any other type of loan you should take some time to go over your credit report. The lender is going to and if you can get to it first and then do some damage control. Sometimes credit reports have errors on them and if your does there are some things that you can do to fix this problem. You do need to take care of this though because your credit report is key to you getting approved for a good mortgage loan.

You will need to get a copy of your credit report from all three of the big credit bureaus. They d sometimes differ somewhat and you need to make all of these reports look fabulous.

When you are going over your credit report you need to look for any inconsistencies in the payment dates or amounts. If you have made any late payments or missed any payments recently write them down as well as an explanation because you will probably need this for the lender. And the number one way to get your credit report and your credit score in better shape is to start paying all of your bills on time each and every month.