Am I ready? I feel ready-ish **UPDATED**

[Anonymous]

I hope I'm ready because I applied this morning and frankly I am freaking out, so I've done this fun exercise to kill some time. It was enlightening to say the least. I appreciate any thoughts, suggestions, etc. that can be provided as I am still incredibly new to all this crazy credit stuff.

Mortgage Credit Scores:  

Experian 638

Equifax 642

Transunion 638

Credit Negatives: 

Let’s see what I have left:

Fingerhut On Eq & Tu only

Type: C/O   Status: Sold  Amount Owed: $0 DOFD: 03/11

Santander

Type: C/O   Status: Unpaid   Amount Owed: Eq & Ex show $9661 owing, Tu shows $8346   DOFD: 02/16

Four Student Loans (All Federal) On all three in various configurations

Type: Collection Accounts, multiple lates on all but one Status: Paid   Amount Owed: $0 they paid themselves with my tax return, less $70+/- which I promptly paid when I discovered this was still owed   DOFD: Varies on record(s) until 2020-2021

Portfolio Recovery (Capital One): On Eq & Ex only, Tu did an EE

Type: Collection   Status: Paid   Amount Owed: $0   DOFD: 03/11

Midland Funding (Fingerhut): On all three

Type: Collection   Status: Unpaid   Amount Owed: $504   DOFD: 02/2011   I know they will do A PFD, but I want to wait to be told to touch it before I do.

Valley Collection Services (City Utility): On Ex only

Type: Collection   Status: Unpaid   Amount Owed: $184   DOFD: On record until 07/18, will try for a PFD if/when I have to pay.

Miscellaneous:

Daughter has no FICO scores yet, but she has two collections showing just on Ex. They used to be on all three, but disappeared from Eq & Tu without us doing anything. One is Medical for $327 and one is for Cox for $597.

Gross Income:

$37440/yr

$8820/yr SSI for my youngest daughter

$18200/yr from my oldest daughter, but I REALLY don’t want to include her if I can help it. She wants to be on the loan though, we have joint accounts, are AU’s on each other’s cards and her income is a contributing factor both in our day to day living and saving for the house, so, I don’t know.

Source of income:

Employment – Full Time (Me)

SSI (Youngest Daughter, I’m her Rep Payee as she is underage and this is something she/I will always receive)

Employment – Full Time (Oldest Daughter)

Monthly debt payments:

Credit Cards, One each, AU on each other’s cards. Pay off through month, leave small balance on one, and pay after statement cuts. That’s it. Literally. “Minimum Payments” are $25.

Rent is $700 plus I pay $111 for a storage unit to hold stuff as we pack.

Employment:

Myself:

Type of employment: Full time

How long: 3 years 2 months at current job, 7+/- years in industry

Daughter:

Type of employment: Full time

How long: Almost one year, but has been/is still in school for industry for 2 years 10 months

Assets/Reserves:

Savings, $1000

Checking $700

Untouchable Retirement: 11.9k Not counted I know (thanks State Gov’t), but it makes me feel better to list it

Location:

State: AZ

City: Tucson

Property Description: 

Single family home

Property Value:

Purchase transaction: No more than 170k, but it’d have to pretty dang near perfect. I'd actually prefer a fixer (minor)

Occupancy:

Myself and two of my three kiddos (middle one is fiercely independent, to a fault sometimes)

Transaction Type:

First purchase

[Anonymous]

Well here we are 3 months later and it turns out that, other than saving up my Down Payment, I was ready. It took me 3 months (almost to the day) to save the $5500+/- I needed for the DP. I have had a Loan Officer since May 17th, I got a Real Estate Agent about a month later (met him at a random Open House we went to). We've had a home in mind from the time we met Jose (my agent), but I didn't have the down payment yet, so therefore did not have the pre-qual to place an offer. Waited and waited and then we were ready, but the day we were set to place an offer the homeowner accepted an offer 1 hour before we were set to view the house again. So disappointed!

Where we live it is a sellers market, almost entirely across the board, so houses come and go FAST! We continued to look at houses but they were either too small, too expensive or were gone too fast. I was originally pre-approved for $140,000 but got it bumped up to $160,000 to give me more negotiating room. We were set to place an offer on a Short Sale but since they have to wait 15 days before they accept an offer we were waiting because we wanted it to be fresh in their minds when the waiting period was up. While we were waiting a nearly perfect house came on the market. It's the poster child for the "Buy the ugliest/worst house in the best neighborhood". Recently solds in the are between $160 & $200 and it was listed for $145! We saw it on Wednesday (8/9) night, placed an offer for full price, 3.5% closing costs and home warranty on Thursday (8/10) morning (7:15am). They accepted it on Friday (8/11) before 8:00am. No counter offer!

Since then I have signed a ton of stuff, gotten my financing paperwork updated, etc. We've had a few road blocks come up. Currently we are having issues with the title because it has been owned by the same family since it was built in 1971. It has been put into trusts because people were dying, then taken out because people got married, then put back into trusts. Long(er) story short, two prior owners need to have probate set up because the surviving spouse never accepted the right to survivorship. What a pain. Hopefully it'll be resolved on Thursday when my Escrow officer meets with their Listing Agent. We have inspections scheduled (again) for this Saturday. Here's hoping!

We did have the roof inspected, because it's free. That report came back fine, now we just have the general inspection and termite inspection. And the appraisal, but I'm not paying for any of that until the title issues are resolved.

Today I got an email from my Loan Processor lsting a few things he needed from me, inquiry explainations (which was in a convenient check box format! Super easy), updated bank account balances, a pre written letter for my daughter to sign stating her money is my (our) money, because all of our accounts are joint, a few forms that are loan specific and Homeowners Insurance information. Not sure how to start this process, just calling, right? Oh yeah, here's a real question- What does this mean?- Your credit report indicates a student loan that was assigned to government. Could you please provide documentation to show what happened to this account? I explained that the student loans have all been paid off, but I'm not sure if that will be enough. I can show where the payment came out of my tax return amount, and my bank statement showing the final tiny payment. Hopefully that will be enough.

And now we are all up to date.

I'll try to post updates as they happen.

Thanks for reading! Please feel free to add any thoughts or comments!