Houses

I am currently looking at houses and am very nervous about sitting down to find out what kind of mortgage I can get. Both my husband and I have masters degrees and have loans both of about 30k. Does this have a huge effect on getting a loan? I feel like I am going to get turned down immediately. My credits not bad but i am not sure if it needs to be absolutely perfect.

Re: Houses

Their are 2 good debts. Studen loans and Mortgage. As long as your debt to income ratio is low, your FICA score in the 700's (I think 800 or 900 is perfect) you should be fine. Their are other things that are also considered in a mortgage such as jobs, how long you have been there, did you move out of state, etc....

We got approved for our mortgage with just my husband having a job. I didnt have a job yet so that was the only form of income listed. He also had a very good credit score.

Each mortgage company is different. The first one we looked like I didnt like the person at all. She wasnt willing to help us or offer us options. The second mortgage company we went with we both love. They offered us so many options and grants especially being first time home owners.

My suggestion is to check your credit reports and your FICA score. That is really the big things that is looked at.

Re: Houses

thanks for the info.

Re: Houses

Hey,

My DH is a bank manager at Washington Mutual. You can email him at [email protected] with any questions you have about mortgages. June262004 works at his branch.

Good luck!

-Rebecca

Re: Houses

Re: Houses

every 12 months under federal law you are entitled to pull your credit report. DH & I are going to start the process soon & have been reading up on buying a home & one of the book suggested doing this. You can go on www.annualcreditreport.com & follow the directions. It is free & if you want your FICA score it cost 6.95. I have over $120,000 in law school loans & a car loan for $11,000 and I was only 1 point lower than my husband who has no student loans or car loans. I would definitely do a credit report though because I foudn there were two credit cards on my report that i thought were closed & straightened them out with the companies--it is alway sgood to see what your credit report is.

Re: Houses

Also keep in mind the more times your credit report is pulled the lower your score becomes. Try to pull your report to know what is on there and if you need to dispute anything you can. (see my experience below) Then when you choose a mortgage company have them pull it. Dont have too many people looking at it otherwise that can damage the report.

DH's credit report was pulled twice for our mortgage company. The first time was to be approved for the mortgage and the second time was when we actually closed on the house. (I dont know if this applies to purchasing homes already built, but our house we were having built and was required to do) In a way it was good because when we were approved for the house we knew exactly what was on the report. a year later when the report was pulled again we found ConEd had posted 3 times on his report and it should have never been there. We wound up moving and forgot to provide the new address from NY to FL and shut off the electric about 2 weeks after I was gone. It took almost a month to get the bill. After we finally got it and paid it it was considered over 30 days late and was reported to the credit agencies. They reported it 3 times. That effected his FICA score by almost 100 points. We had to contact ConEd, and all 3 credit reporting agencies to all be on the same page. After a month battle we finally had all 3 removed and his FICA score refreshed.

It's good to know what is on your report because if their is anything that is wrong it can be fixed and it's good to have it fixed now rather then sitting in the mortgage persons office and find out worse.