My husband and I both have clean but short credit files and are looking to purchase a home this summer. Here is our profile info:
- Credit
- His
- EX FICO08 784 1/24/15, no pubic records or derogs
- Credit history is very thin. He has a paid off car loan that was cosigned with his parents, never late, paid off in 2010. No credit cards before Oct 14. Current credit cards include:
- Cap 1 - $500 CL - Open date 10/14 - never posts a balance more than $50, always PIF
- Discover IT - $1500 CL - Open date 4/14 - was original my account but added him as a joint applicant 10/14. Never more than $150 posting balance, always PIF
- AMEX BCP - $15,400 CL (not a typo, they must really like him) - Open date 1/15 but will report 1/14 due to backdating - this will be used for grocery purchases and will post $800 a month, always PIF. From now on he will be paying the Discover and Cap 1 before the statement cut date for 0 balances.
- Added as authorized user on wife's BCE, PRG, CSP and Freedom
- 2 inquiries from Cap 1 and AMEX (tried to build score through piggybacking to save the inquiries)
- AAoA: 1 year without AU accounts
- Hers
- TU FICO08 760 1/19/15, EQ Score Power (FICO04) 740, no public records or derogs
- Credit history no longer as thin, but still short. Didn't use any credit cards before 10/13, when I started building a thicker history so we could eventually get a morgtage. The two AMEX accounts are backdated to 1999 from a corporate card I had forgotten about, which significantly helps AAoA.
- Open Sky Secured - $500 CL - open date 10/13, close date 10/14 before the annual fee hit. Always PIF, high balance was $40
- SDFCU Secured - $2000 CL - open date 2/14, close date 10/14 no longer needed. Always PIF, high balance $1200
- SDFCU Secured Installment Loan $1000 - open date 5/14 - only opened to add to credit mix. Will be paid off before we apply for anything.
- Discover IT - 1500 CL - same as joint account listed with husband
- Capital One - $4000 CL - open date 6/14 - always PIF, high balance $100 but not posting balances these days
- AMEX BCE - $7500 CL - open date 9/14 but backdated to 9/99 due to old corporate card I forgot I had. Always PIF, high balance $1000, will no longer be posting a balance as spend will go to husband's BCP. Will be asking for a 3X CLI in 5/15 before applying for a mortgage (61 day 3X CLI was approved).
- AMEX PRG - NSPL - open date 9/14 backdated to 9/99. Usually have $1000 - $2000 posting, always PIF (household expenses).
- CSP - $21000 CL - open date 9/14. Usually have $500 posting, always PIF. Will be reporting $0 for immediate future.
- Chase Freedom - $14000 - open date 9/14. Usually have $400 post, always PIF. Will be reporting $0 for the immediate future.
- Care Credit - $8000 CL - open date 9/14. Current balance $700 of $2100 high balance (0 APR promotion) will be paid in full 3/15.
- Inquiries: 7 for TU, 9 for EX, 6 for EQ. Last date for all 3 bureaus is 9/14, all will be over 6 months old when we apply . I'm hoping to see a small score bump when these age a little more.
- AAoA: 4 years (thanks to AMEX backdating, but any manual review of a credit report will show how short my history really is)
- Income
- His: $65k W2 salary, will be on the job roughly 1 year when we apply, same industry for 3 years
- Hers: $125k W2 salary, $5K W2 bonus, ~$5k in 1099 income that isn't relied on to pay bills. Will be on job ~9 months when ready to apply, in industry for 8 years.
- Both: Side business LLC that is roughly break even, we do not count on this for income but expect to have some income this year (no intention to quit day jobs, it's more of a hobby business)
- Monthly Debt Payments
- $750/mo student loan (hers, does not appear on credit report but paid on time)
- Minimum payments on cards are roughly $160/mo, but always PIF. We will also let one card report each and $0 all others when we are closer to applying.
- Other than SDFCU installment loan that will be PIF, no other payments.
- Assets - $40k in cash, will have $50k by the time we apply. (Currently saving at a rate of $3k/month.) We do not want to use more than $25k for a down payment, but could probaby go a little higher if we needed to.That would leave us with $25k cash reserves after closing.
- Location - King County, WA
- Property - Single family home purchase in $400-$550k range as primary residence.
Given all that info, what are some good options for us? We are thinking about applying for a pre-approval in May or June and trying to find something and close by August or September. Here were some options we are considering now:
- 5% down conventional
- One of the new 3% down conventional programs
- FHA (wasn't considering before PMI rates were cut)
- 80/15/5 not sure if this is a realistic possibility, but would be our best case scenario
Thanks for reading - I know that was a bit wordy. I was erring on the side of complete information. Any advice is appreciated. We are both new to this.
