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One of my reasons for cleaning up my credit is to buy a house. It will have to be in my name as my husband's credit is trashed. I had a brief chat with a banker at our local credit union and asked what the basic requirements are and he said my previous year's 1040 and paystubs -- I told him I freelance, and he just said I'd need my 1099's and they'd compare all that to my bank account/taxes. No problem there.
This year was a really good year financially for me, and it might make sense to look for a house late next year using this year's data (also, my credit union is GREAT with first time home buyers). We won't have a lot to put down, but my credit should be pretty clean and clear by then. (No negatives, very little debt left.) I played with some calculators, and it said the amount of a house I can only afford is $75,000....
I make over 100,000 on my own!
If my scores are over 700 with no negatives and very little debt (assuming that's where I'll be at when I start the process), am I still really stuck in an apartment forever?
double check the numbers with a professional.... but if you have a lot of debt, then that affects house purchasing power
Thanks! I should sit down with someone in the mortgage dept at the credit union to chat. I know they can run "scenarios" as we played with some "options" to try to qualify me for a loan, and they "removed" some things from my credit report to see what I would need to do be approved. I couldn't see their screen, but even though in the immediate nothing worked, we played around and removed all the negative accounts -- and one major high balance -- and got my score up to 800. HA!