Rodney

If you have no debt, a good job, and some money for a down, they'll want to talk to you. And I would shop around, as others have said. You need to look not just at interest rates but "points" (fees) and other miscellaneous fees they don't necessarily tell you about and which mean nothing really except that it's a way to make more money off you after you think you've gone too far to back out (you haven't).

Having no debt these days is huge. How much of a down can you afford? I know some people are getting in for as little as five percent down on some loans -- and I wouldn't do that, because if home prices drop you'll be under water (you'll owe more than the house is worth). But if you can make 20 percent down, you can a) protect yourself from going under water, and b) make the loan company quite happy because if they have to foreclose they'll still get their money out (since they're only loaning on 80 percent of the house's value, not 95).

If you can't make 20, go as high as you can. Like I say, they'll like you. And many of them are desperate, so don't let them act like they're doing you a favor. They need you more than you need them. The mortgage industry operates on a boom/bust cycle, and they're just past the peak of the boom. They've staffed up, opened extra offices, bought equipment, and now they have all this overhead to cover. And there's plenty of investor money for mortgages right now, because it's a pretty darned safe investment than pays 6 percent return. So they need to make loans.