pre approval help

[Anonymous]

So my wife and I went to our local bank and were preapproved for a mortgage. After pulling our credit it showed that my 11% utilization on my cards was excellent; but if I were to  take out a loan and pay it off then I would have more money for a preapproval which would get me in the range of homes we want. But my concern is that if I do this then it shows new debt. Im not sure what to do in this situation. We also have an FHA first homebuyer program wher we are getting 7500$ for closing costs etc on top of our pwn money to put down. Can someone please give me some advice in this situation? 

[Sbrooks1]

Do not acquire any new debt during this mortgage process. Ideally you would want all cards reporting zero except one and you would want that to report<9%. But do not take a loan out at this point !!

[Sbrooks1]

Also the loan payment will figure into your FYI. List all cards and balance/Cl and somehow will chime in with more ideas

[Anonymous]

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@Sbrooks1 wrote:
Also the loan payment will figure into your FYI. List all cards and balance/Cl and somehow will chime in with more ideas

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Im not sure what you mean in this message, and also what is FYI mean?

[Anonymous]

FYI (for your information) thinking it was supposed to read DTI (debt to income).

Definitely do not take on any extra debt, it will be of no use anyway. Borrowed funds cannot be used towards the downpayment/closing costs.
Figure out with your loan officer exactly how much house you can afford look for a house in that range not the range you want. Pre 2008 lots of people bought homes in the range they wanted not what they could afford...rest is history. You want to be financially comfortable not just barely hanging on...think about having to buy a furnace in January. Things will happen that are out of our control.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:
FYI (for your information) thinking it was supposed to read DTI (debt to income).

Definitely do not take on any extra debt, it will be of no use anyway. Borrowed funds cannot be used towards the downpayment/closing costs.
Figure out with your loan officer exactly how much house you can afford look for a house in that range not the range you want. Pre 2008 lots of people bought homes in the range they wanted not what they could afford...rest is history. You want to be financially comfortable not just barely hanging on...think about having to buy a furnace in January. Things will happen that are out of our control.

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Thank you that makes sense, but my question also is what if we find a house thats 10k over our preapproval amount, can i use extra money down to cover that difference? Im worried that the seller wont even look at our offer if our preapproval is less than what the house is worth. So if we find a house for 120k but the preapproval is 110k can i put down the 10k difference to be in my approval range?