I'm trying to get my arms around the best strategy for buying a home together with my girlfriend sometime in the coming 12 months (after we're engaged).
The background: I'll be a first time home buyer with strong credit and earnings: scores ranging 750 - 780 between my three scores (up from mid 500's 3 years ago thanks to much help from these boards) and an annual salary of 170k. She is just starting to work on fixing her credit - scores all in the low 600's and earns around 45k, but also has realtively liquid investments in the low 7 figures from an inheritance. We're looking at homes in the 350-400k range, which I should be able to qualify for on my own, but we would like to pull some equity out of her investments for the down payment.
I'm thinking we could just open a joint checking account to use for a 20 - 30% down payment, but only use my credit for the mortgage itself (which we're both ok with.) Is it that simple or am I missing anything? And if this makes sense, are there any particular checking accounts we should be looking at? Am I even asking the right questions?
