USDA - What DTI did you get approved with?

[Anonymous]

I applied for a USDA mortgage and was pre-approved at 299K. It's currently going through underwriting but I'm nervous about the DTI ratios. With the expected PITI my front end would be 35% and my backend would be 44%. My LO said they can waive the standard 29/41, but it's up to underwriting. I have a mid score of 670, excellent payment history, no negatives, and 7 years at my current job. Guess I'm here to try to calm some of my nerves and see what DTI ratios others have been approved for with USDA! Please share.

[Anonymous]

i have read the new USDA guidelines backwards and forwards. There are no written ratios for GUS. If it goes through it goes through, but 29/41 is normal range. You may can go 1% over and be ok.  With manual UW though, you need a 680 to qualify for an except to the DTI ratio. If you do qualigy, you must meet one of several criteria such as having 3x the PITI in cash etc... and even then they can only increase ONE of the ratios by up to 3%

Only the front end  OR back end can be over the 29/41. Guidelines say absolutely NO to both ratios,  as it appears with you going 6 points over on the front and 3 on the back.

I cant believe your LO doesnt know this. Good luck with the UW.  Please let me know if UW approves this, as i am very interested.

[Anonymous]

wally1972, that's the same info I found and brought up to my LO. They said it's still flexible and they are confident that it will pass UW without an issue. I went through and paid off as much of my debt as I could and my LO was able to include annual bonuses since I've received them for 2+ years so I'm now at a 34/43 ratio....crossing my fingers.

[Anonymous]

Well, no USDA loan for us. Apparantly it wasn't so much the DTI rather my wife's income. She is currently a 1099 worker and has been for only 6 months, my LO didn't put her on the loan as they needed 2 years of 1099 history. But since she was a W4 employee previously USDA UW still factored her income into the median household income for the area which put us over the 97k limit. We're working on moving to an FHA loan now, glad they reduced MI by .5% otherwise the payment would be so much higher!