No credit history doesn't mean bad credit, it means invisible credit. And invisible credit is something you can fix, faster than you might think.
When you apply for a mortgage, your lender doesn't see what you see. They pull a completely different version of your credit, and the criteria they use may surprise you.
It sounds logical, you paid off that old credit card, so you should close it, right? Not so fast. That one decision could drop your credit score by more points than you expect.
A credit score of 500 and a credit score of 700 can mean the difference between being denied a mortgage and qualifying for one. But the journey between those two numbers is not a straight line, and most people don't know what to expect.