Before you can shop for a house to buy, you have to make sure you'll be able to get a loan. After all, there's no point in falling in love with a home only to discover it's out of your price range – or worse, you aren't able to get approved for a mortgage. That's why meeting with your lender is the first step of the home buying process. It's how you know what you can spend on a house and what the terms of your loan will be.
But the standards that are used to determine whether and how much you're able to borrow aren't fixed. In other words, it can be harder to get approved for a mortgage at some times and easier at others. That's why the Mortgage Bankers Association tracks mortgage credit availability each month. Their Mortgage Credit Availability Index measures whether lending standards have tightened or loosened. In May, the index found that lending standards loosened, making it easier for prospective home buyers to secure financing.
In fact, mortgage credit is now more available than its been since the pandemic began last year. And that's good news for home buyers, since it means they're more likely to be approved when applying for a loan.
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