A mortgage after bankruptcy is within your reach as long as you take care of business on your end. A bankruptcy by no means translates into the permanent expulsion from receiving a mortgage, and it actually doesn’t take that long to regain your footing so that you can apply and have a good chance at being approved for a mortgage after bankruptcy.

Most lenders will not even consider an applicant less than two years out of their bankruptcy proceedings. This can actually benefit a prospective borrower coming out of bankruptcy, because it can give them a chance to get their ducks in a row, and to make sure that they have done everything in their power to better their chances at getting approved.

So what can you do exactly to improve your chances at getting approved during those two years right after bankruptcy. The first thing you can do is try and improve your credit. After a bankruptcy, most credit scores are in the dumps, and to make improvements, you are going to have to begin to re-establish your credit over time. This means that you are going to have to open some small credit accounts, whether that be a small credit card, personal loan, or some other kind of credit instrument. Make sure to make all of your payments on time every single month. Any missed payments during your two-year recovery period will exponentially hurt your chances of being approved, and ninety-nine percent of lenders will not work with you if you go into default once again on your credit accounts immediately after bankruptcy.

So hopefully you now have your credit back on track, and as long as you can stay consistent, your credit score should rise gradually over time. Even though you are improving your score, your credit report will still reveal the bankruptcy, and the older accounts that were probably discharged. This is going to hurt your application as long as they are present on your report, and the best thing you can do is provide a good explanation if a lender asks specifically about these marks. The bankruptcy itself should only last roughly seven years after the proceedings have fully ended, so if all else fails, you should be at ground zero in seven years no matter what. Most people don’t want to wait that long, and you definitely do not have to as long as you can begin to make improvements to your credit, as well as the other factors on your application.

Lenders will penalize you less for your bad credit, and a past bankruptcy if you can supply them with an application that is strong everywhere else. For a mortgage loan, this means that you need to have several things in line. For one, you should have a substantial down payment readily available for your mortgage. Depending on the mortgage, down payments can range anywhere from one, to five, to twenty percent, and on average they run around ten percent for a residential, median-priced single-family home. If you could come up with over twenty percent, lenders will see that as a huge plus, and they will reward you accordingly.

Next you should make sure you can supply a proper employment history with all of the necessary documents that a lender may require. This means that you should have all of your W-2’s and pay stubs readily available to submit to your lender. Next you should make sure you have a good income, and that will hopefully translate into a good debt to income ratio for your lender. This is an important metric for most lenders and if they can see that you have a good amount of money leftover each month at your disposal, you will have a better chance at getting approved for your mortgage after bankruptcy.

If you can improve these factors significantly beyond the lender’s minimal requirements, you may overcome the fact that you have less than stellar credit and a bankruptcy on your record. No matter what a bankruptcy is by no means the end of your chances of receiving another mortgage, and it really only makes the process a bit more difficult.