me and my husband both have bad credit from the past we now have our house payed off and would like to put our house up as collateral to get a loan to help us out in a hard time do you think we would qualify

Hi William: There is no safe answer here. You say you have bad credit but don't give scores so I do not know your interpretation of "BAD". With the tightening of loan guidelines these past 2 years because of the problems in the industry getting a loan just based on collateral value is next to impossible. You would have to qualify for the loan based on your ability to pay it back to the lender. If your credit is such that you have not paid lenders or vendors in the past you will not qualify as lenders will not take the risk. If however you have a couple of late payments on some accounts but have paid others on time you may be able to qualify for a government guaranteed FHA loan. You will need to verify income and assets and meet minimum Score guidelines. The only way to know for sure is to speak to a mortgage professional and have them determine your qualifications.