While there are many mortgage programs available for people with poor credit, it’s always a good idea to continuously try to improve your credit score, even if you have already found a mortgage banker willing to give you a loan. With better credit, you may be able to trade your high-interest loan for a low-interest one some time in the future.

It’s a simple fact that people with poor credit have to spend more money on interest and fees--an unfortunate truism that often results in being even more stretched to the limit. For example, a person with poor credit can usually buy a car, but will end up with monthly payments as much as double that given a person with better credit. So the person with good credit benefits by lower payments, and is better able to manage his or her finances, while the person with poor credit is more likely to go into a never-ending spiral of bad debt simply because a much higher percentage of his or her income is eaten up by fees and interest.

There’s a difference between bad credit and no credit, but either way, your score may be inadequate. Bad credit is more difficult to fix; having no credit is a simple matter to remedy. Start by applying for department store credit cards or low-credit-limit major charge cards. Buying a car on credit is also much easier than buying a house, so this is also a good way to start the process of gaining good credit references.

Of course, the most obvious no-brainer piece of advice is to pay your bills on time. Almost everyone has faced a situation where this is simply not possible, but focus on the present. You can’t do anything about the late payments you’ve already made, but each late payment you continue to make results in additional points against you. Don’t get discouraged because your credit history reflects multiple late payments. Instead, focus on not accruing any more delinquencies in the future so that you do not make your credit worse than it already is.

A reasonable banker (and there are some out there) will give more weight to your more recent credit patterns. He/she may make a judgment call in your favor if, for example, you had a lot of late payments in the past, but have been paying everything on time for the past year. An unreasonable banker that does not take this into consideration is not worthy of your business.