Definition
A credit score is a numeric summary of someone's borrowing history that lenders use to decide whether to approve a loan and what rate to charge. Higher scores generally unlock lower interest rates and smoother approvals. As a seller you rarely see a buyer's credit score directly, but it quietly drives whether their financing survives all the way to closing. It also matters for your own situation: events like a foreclosure can drop a homeowner's score by 100 points or more, which is one reason people facing foreclosure often look for a faster way out.
Example
Facing a looming foreclosure date just six weeks away, Marcus chose to sell his home for cash rather than let the foreclosure process run its full, damaging course. Selling before the foreclosure completed spared him the heaviest, longest-lasting credit damage that a completed foreclosure would have caused, since the sale paid off his loan in full instead of leaving it delinquent. Within a couple of years, his credit had recovered enough to qualify for a modest apartment lease and later a car loan, both of which he assumed would take much longer given how far behind he'd fallen. He later said the speed of the cash sale, closing in under two weeks from his first phone call, was what made the difference between recovering quickly and facing years of rebuilding his credit. Marcus also avoided the public record of a completed foreclosure, which he learned can make landlords and lenders far more hesitant even years afterward. Looking back, he considered the lower sale price a fair trade for protecting his financial future.