Yes, you can, although you may have to put a little more legwork into finding a lender that will work with you. If you have bad credit, you can work on the other things lenders will look at when deciding whether you’re a good candidate for home ownership: 1. Build up good creditworthiness by paying your bills and rent on time and dealing with any collections as soon as you can. 2. Make sure your debt-to-income ratio (how much debt you have compared to your salary) is as low as possible. Some lenders will approve DTIs as high as 43%, but aim to have it around 36%. 3. If you can, save a cash down payment of around 10%.