Want to go for second mortgage

[Anonymous]

Hi,

I have a couple of questions and I thought I would turn here for honest answers. I am looking to go for a second (vacation home) mortgage along with my father-in-law. I am looking for the best senerio. He is retired and has almost perfect credit, but probably shows "OK" debt to income ratio(not sure) My wife and I have about 150k+ houshold income. The only debt "I" have is our mortgage. 1,600.00 month. My wife has a school loan and a store credit card. Wifes credit score is around 680-700. My credit score is 655 on "myfreecreditreport.com" Here on "my Fico its says I dont have one with either company. My motrgage is current and has been reporting. I have been current for the last two years. It would have been alot longer if i had not to enter into a tempoarary forbareance with my mortgage back in december 2007. I tried to dispute this, to no avail. Back in 12/07. I could forsee goint to have trouble making my payments(not even 30 days late yet) I tried to do the right thing and called my mortgage to see my options. I FIRST thing I told them was that I did not want to ruin my credit. They told me I could do this forbareance and spread the Jan payment over the next six months. I stuck to THIER payment schedule and was never late. They never told me that they were going to report me 30 days late for the next six months. If they told me that I would have gone another route and borrowed money from a family member. Like I said i tried to do the "right" thing. Now it looks like I was just 30 days late for six months. Even that was two years ago now. I did recently receive a huge refinance on my current mortgage from 10% to 4%. I did have a judgement against me back in 07, but it was paid and closed in 07.(hence the financial problems) Prior to 07 I have shown some lates but have been current with everything for last two years. Dont know if I have given enough history, but here are some of my questions to try to get approved for this second mortgage.

Should I try to open a credit card to help my score or will the inquiry and possible debt hurt me more?

Should I have my wife(with a better credit score) and her father go for  the loan alone? I do bring the majority of the income and have the much better debt to income ratio but lower credit score.

Should I just try to go for it the way things stand now?

Thanks for any input. If you need more nfo let me know.

Thanks again!

[BrianB_The_Loan_Professor]

if you have a large enough down payment your scores would be fine

if you dont then you would have to raise the score

or do the loan without you and your income

B

[Anonymous]

My father inlaw is doing the down payment..the full 20% . If we are doing it together does it matter who has the down payment???? Do we need to show that it came from both of us?

[BrianB_The_Loan_Professor]

when you do a loan together there is no us and them you are all one unit as seen by the bank

They will price off of the lowest credit scores of all borrowers and will look at total income to debt as well as assetts of all combined

It wont matter who has it so long as they are on the loan

B

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the info so far. Another question....When you say they look at us as a unit for the debt and income..etc. How do you weigh three out of the four with good to excellent credit scores and one with only a fair 655.???

Thanks

[Anonymous]

They will go by the lowest middle score for both of you for determination.

As far as  debt/income goes they will add up all of your combined debt, and all of your combined income to determine DTI.   They do not determine your DTI and his DTI separately.