When applying for a mortgage, the lender you have chosen will take many factors into account. These factors not only influence what type of loans for which you may qualify, but also what your monthly payments will be and how many years you will require to pay the loan off completely.

It is very important that you read and understand everything on this list. If you follow these rules, things will be much simpler when you attempt to get a large loan for a car or piece of real estate.

Some of the basic factors apply for just about any loan, but are especially important if you are trying to get a mortgage. The big one is, yep, you guessed it--credit.

How good is your credit? Even if it's not stellar, don't worry as there are bad credit mortgages available. Get copies of all of your credit reports from the 3 major consumer reporting companies and check each one for errors.

Many times they have errors that can be corrected in just a few weeks and that helps boost your score. If you have credit cards, pay them off as well as any other outstanding bills.

A nice large down payment will always improve your chances of being approved. If your credit isn't completely top notch, the bigger the down payment, the more likely you will get improved.

If your credit is already stellar, that is the ideal situation to be in. To lower your monthly payments, and decrease the time it takes to pay off the loan, you can still put down as much as you can, even if your credit is great.

The most important thing is to always be completely truthful with the company offering you a loan. Don't drum up your occupation or the length of time you have been working. If they offer you a loan based on that false information, you could be in big trouble when they discover the truth. With complete disclosure, your lender will do everything in his power to cut you a great deal.

Even if you've made mistakes in the past, that doesn't necessarily mean you won't qualify for a mortgage. Regardless of whether you have good credit or need a bad credit mortgage, you'll find a variety of mortgage lenders listed at our site that can help.