I recently married and we added my name to my husbands mortgage. It’s a VA loan and this was surprisingly easy to do - we just filled out a couple forms, no credit check or application just a signature or two and voila - the mortgage now shows up on my credit report. Thought this would be a good idea for deducting interest on my taxes, and my credit score had gone down after I sold my house and had no mortgage or rental on my credit report, and I was advised that it would be helpful if I had a mortgage on my credit report, so I wanted a mortgage back on there. Here’s the problem: my husband makes a lot more money than I do. Consequently, the house he could afford, and purchased, prior to our marrying,, is waaaayyyy more than I could qualify for alone, or even as half of a couple assuming the other half made about the same income as me. Our arrangement is we have a joint account into which I put about 25% of the payment and he puts 75% and the house payment is made from that account. All fine and good. Until recently, when I decided to consolidate some debt to pay down my credit cards. My scores are fair - mid 600s, but no late payments or collections, just high usage and... you guessed it - high debt to income ratio. I’m guessing it’s the mortgage that is driving up that ratio? Like, they have to assume that I am responsible for the full amount of the payment when figuring my debt to income ratio? How do other people get around this? I cannot believe that I am the only person with a spouse who, thanks to the spouses high earnings, they live in a lovely, expensive home that the lower income earner could only afford a portion of on their own. Help!
