Okay here's my info.
Gross Income: $37,000 from working for state government
Bills: $425 car payment, 100 car insurance, 50 student loans
Location: Tallahassee, FL
Credit Scores: Currently 650ish on all three
Price Range: I'd like to get a small house no more then $130k
As far as my credit score it's currently in the 650s because I have high utilization of around 50% and some new cards. I do have two old paid COs that are aproximately 4 years old. First order of business is to bring my CC utilization down to 0. I have a 22,000k auto loan which I've been on time with for over a year and is currently sitting with a balance of 17500. I have 3000 in student loans I'm paying back currently also never late and finally I have a 1700 computer (for my work) that I'm currently repaying on a 0% for 12 months dell account that I'll be paying off shortly. I would imagine just getting my balances on my credit cards and paying off the dell account will get my credit score into the 680s-690s. As far as liquid cash I have about 2k in savings. The rest is going towards paying off CCs/revolving accounts for the moment. Once I have the last two CCs paid off and the dell account paid off is there anything else I should do prior to trying to prequalify?
One other thing that may be worth noting is I intend on getting a roommate to live in the house with me and pay half of the mortgage. Right now my best friend wants to get out of his apartment and would move in with me. I'm sure I can't put that as an income source when applying for the mortgage but figured it might be worth mentioning. Does this sound feasible? How much of a down payment will I need to have? Any and all advice is welcome as this is my first home purchase.
Yeah I've thought about just getting a nice townhome which can be bought in my area for 60-75k (these were townhomes which prior to the bubble bursting were selling for 120-160k) and figured that may be the way to go. My only concern with that is when I'm ready to upgrade to something larger down the line they seem to be even harder then regular homes to sell (although I may just be overthinking things).
As far as employment I have had nonstop employment for 4 years, however I just started my current job which I took because it paid more and is kinda the reason I'm looking to finally buy my own place. I did mention what negatives are on my credit report. There are two old paid COs and that's it for negatives. As far as type of loan I just assumed I'd go for a 30 year fixed rate since rates are at historic lows.
