Unsure of our chances??

[momma3boys]

Hi, We are beginning to explore the possibility of purchasing a home or building a home. Here are our stats:
Income: me - 44k (salary); spouse - 60k (limited overtime)
Monthly Debts: car 1 - 410; car 2 - 580; toy - 250; SL - 560
Scores: me and spouse - all scores over 800

Down payment - 10k, could scrounge up more if needed

Here is where I see the problem - we have lived rent free in a family provides home for over 10 years. We do not have much saved as our income only recently became this high and we made a lot of stupid decisions over the years. How bad will this hurt us? We are hoping to spend around 200k.

Thanks!

[vanillabean]

Welcome to the myFICO forums!

Did you pull your scores here at myFICO? If so, they are FICO 08. Given they are all in the 800s, I'll assume you have no derogatories of any kind. Is that correct?

Mortgage lenders pull FICO 04 (EQ 04 TU 04 EX 98), which is different, to some very different. You can check out your EQ 04 at the EQ website for $19.95 a pop.

5% ($10,000 / $200,000) is borderline for PMI. Zillow says, “If you cannot put 20 percent down, your lender will require private mortgage insurance (PMI) to protect himself from losses. (However, if you can only afford, for example, 5 percent down, but have good credit, you can still get a loan, and even avoid paying PMI.”

Then there is the 28/36 rule to consider as well.

Hope this helps.

[momma3boys]

So I went to the Equifax website and my score is 806.  I did not pull my husbands and his scores are always higher than mine (longer history I imagine). 

I have another question.   There is a house that we have been eyeing that is on 41.5 acres.  Beautiful house that is arond 2500 square feet built in 2009. This house has been on and off the market for around 3.5-4 years at 320k.  We live in a very rural, economically depressed area and very few people are in the market for this price.  The seller told my mom about 1.5 years ago that if he was offered 280k, he would sell.  We are hopeful that we could get it for around 250k.  He is recently divorced and looking to leave the area.

How hard is it to get a mortgage with that acreage?

Also, with our high credit scores, is there any way we can avoid PMI with a small down payment?

Thanks!