Trying to buy a home with bad credit is hard. But what about trying to buy a home with no credit at all?

There’s a name for these people: “credit invisibles.” It means they don’t have a credit report or score on file with the three major credit bureaus (Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion), usually because they don’t have a traditional credit trail such as a credit card or college loan. Far from being anomalies lurking on the fringes of society, credit invisibles are shockingly common.

According to a recent report by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, roughly 45 million Americans are characterized as credit invisible. Meanwhile, 19.4 million are known by another equally ominous label: “credit unscorable.” That means they have some credit history, but not enough to generate a score. For example, they might have had credit cards or loans at one point but then stopped, usually due to financial difficulties.

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