I am planning on selling my current house and buying a different house, but I have 2 questions. If my mortgage is paid down enough where I have plenty of equity, I haven't used credit cards in over 10 years and I have no debt, than what is my credit score and how do the banks decide whether or not to give me a new mortgage? Also, my wife and I make over 90,000 a year, so we can easily make the new mortgage payments on a 15 year with 20% down and not borrow more than 28% of our net income.

your credit file will tell you your score, get a copy, it is not only that you pay your mortgage, it is utilities, car loans, credit cards, etc, the best credit scores are reached when you have and use credit lines which have no collateral, but the others count as well.

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If you read my thread, I said that I don't use credit except the mortgage, and in my state the utilities don't affect your credit, so how do you think they will guage my credit and if I have plenty of disposable income with hardly any debt.

they will still pull your FICO score, only very small community banks and banks who work with the Amish do not use the FICO score, the problem is that compliance will ask for the FICO score, legally they sometimes need it, almost all will say they have to have it, which is not true, compliance can use the Know your customer rules but most lenders will not allow it. Therefore get the credit file, if there is nothing there you will be in trouble even at a very low loan to value ratio they will probably only offer a higher interest rate, look at the community banks and cooperative institutions

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What has this world come to that if you make very good money have low debt, but don't use credit you can't a mortgage a traditional way. The FICO score is an "I love debt score".. I will have to look into underwriting where they don't use your FICO I Love Debt score.... We live in a crazy world when I can easily make the payments but that doesn't matter unless you have borrowed lots of debt and paid some of it off.

you are right but thats the american way (can you tell I'm not american ;-) ), anyway its difficult to find non-fico related loans because they either carry a special premium or they are carefully hidden; the system rewards the spender who uses credit, however before you go off get a copy you may have over the years generated a FICO score you are not even aware of, just to make sure. I would also start with the bank you currently use, since you are looking for a low loan to value structure, they may even work with you

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