With interest rates at an all time low, everyone wants to purchase property and rightfully so.  It is the greatest investment of your life and with the low bond repayments, who can resist?

However, the question arises on how to ensure that your credit and financial records are favorable for a bond application.

The most important is to ensure that you manage your finances monthly and ensure due diligence with all your expenses. 

Do you know what is deducted from your account and by whom  and do you work strictly on a budget? Ensure that your payments on all accounts are made timeously, as banks will deem you are as a bad payer if you do not make timeously payments. 

The banks are extremely strict with granting of bonds and especially the impact of bad credit records on such credit agreements. 

Each bank has its own method of scoring your risk profile, but usually they score from low to high and the higher your score, the less of a risk you’ll be, so the better your chances of getting a bond.

Your application for a home loan will probably be declined if you have been blacklisted with the credit bureau.

It is important to make sure what your profile is at the credit bureau.  Ask a registered financial service provider to do a check for you (costs about R 100) and use this report as your base line.

It is possible to buy a house even if you have a bad credit rating but it will depend on how bad that rating is.   

Manage your finances strictly and conduct your accounts correctly, pay them on time,  close some of them so that you aren’t seen to be overexposed, and to make sure that you can in fact afford all your loans - bearing in mind that you’ll be allowed to allocate up to 30% of your gross income on your home loan when you do qualify for one.