Ask ten people what you need to buy a house and you'll get ten different numbers, all said with total confidence. The honest answer is: it depends. There's no single cutoff that flips from 'no' to 'yes.' But your score matters enormously, not just for whether you can buy, but for how much the house costs you over the next 30 years.

There's no one magic number

Different loan types have different minimums, and those vary by lender. As a rough guide: government-backed FHA loans often go down to about a 580 score (sometimes 500 with a bigger ), while conventional loans usually want around 620 or higher. Individual lenders can set their bar higher, so ask each lender for its own minimums rather than trusting a number you heard. The takeaway isn't a specific cutoff. 'My score isn't perfect' rarely means 'I can't buy'; it usually just means fewer options or a higher rate.

Why a higher score saves you real money

Two people can buy the same house, with the same down payment, and pay wildly different amounts, all because of their scores. A higher score earns a lower rate, and on a loan that big, a small rate difference adds up to a stunning amount.

Picture a $250,000 . Even a fraction of a percent off your rate can mean tens of thousands of dollars saved over the life of the loan. Your credit score isn't a gate you pass once; it's a price tag attached to every monthly payment.

Getting your score mortgage-ready

If a home is a year or two out, you have time to push your score up. The fundamentals are the same ones that build credit anywhere, and they're covered in What Is a Credit Score? and What Hurts Your Score: pay everything on time, keep card balances low, let your history age. A mortgage application adds two specifics of its own:

  • Don't open a bunch of new credit right before applying for a mortgage.
  • Give the improvements time to show up. Steady months of on-time payments do more for your rate than any last-minute trick.
Tip
Pull your credit reports and check them for errors before you apply. You're entitled to free copies, a mistake that isn't yours can drag your score down, and getting it corrected costs nothing. That's the easiest 'rate cut' you'll ever earn.

Don't wait for a 'perfect' score to start. But if you've got time, every point you raise before you apply can quietly hand you a better rate, and thousands of dollars back over the years.