How far am I from buying a house again?

[chips1971]

Hello. I make pretty good money, about 140K a year, corporate job publically traded company and about to get another raise and promotion. My debt to income ration is less than 9%. My credit scores are different (majorly) on Credit Sesame and Credit Karma compared to myFico. Today I decided to purchase myFico score for the first time and that is when I saw the difference between the scores. My bank via "CreditView" or "CreditWise" have my score at 678. Credit Karma has my TU: 693 and my Equifax jumps between 573 and 620 monthly as they are fixing problems but by operator error have made mistakes they easily admit to so I would go with 620 for Equifax. Credit Sesame has my score at 693.  I will have about 20K to put down on a house and hoping to buy a house for 350K. Could come up with a little more if needed (30K).  How far am I away? I would like to wait for my score to come up to not have to buy mortgage insurance but pretty sure I don't have enough time or downpayment to make that happen. So how many months should I wait to apply for a home loan? I have been at this job for three going on my fourth year and self employed before that making 120K-150K yearly. Also if I am qualified now or soon, what percentage rate would I be looking at? Had a hard time after the recession and a major IRS audit that was paid in full. Credit score got messed up as I made sure the governement got their money before everyone. I know it will improve more but hoping to move during the summer and get family settled again after the promotion at work. Thank you so much for your help and guidance. I have two credit cards with and less than 10% owed on those with about 5K available credit. Have a 2012 truck payment with only 5K left on the loan and I have a small RV payment (financed it only for credit help). 

[Anonymous]

The scores through credit karma are vantage scores, not used by lenders, dont really use same logic as fico so they have limited use for monitoring your FICO scores. That said, you pulled your report here, the scores you need to look at are the mortgage scores and not the fico 8. Generally you will need 12 months of clean payments so if your baddies are aged then that is one worry down. Your scores will probably make fha the ideal choice, bad news is pmi, good news is lower rate lower down payment vs a conventional. Sooo, depending on your mortgage scores you could loan shop now, i would consider getting scores over 660.

[oldman425]

I bet if you start looking for a home loan, the pre-qualification will let you know if your are ready or not.  $20K or $30K for down would work in your favor as FHA only requires a 3.5% down.  

[chips1971]

Thank you. Yes everything has been paid for over 12 months on time. Three medical bills I have tried to dispute but cannot get removed under 1000 combined. They are old, one I won't pay because it was for eye glasses the optician never gave me so I won't pay for a product never received. It is also old. I believe I should work just a bit more but if I can get in a house by July that would be ideal. I am near the 650-660 now so thank you for the hope. Don't want to pull the credit until the last minute when all ducks are in order. 

[chips1971]

WOW - just saw one of my mortgage scores is 710. How do they average the three difference scores when getting one final number?

[oldman425]

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@chips1971 wrote:

WOW - just saw one of my mortgage scores is 710. How do they average the three difference scores when getting one final number?

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Pretty simple.  They look at all three scores and use the one in the middle.