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Buying a House: The Good (Credit), The Bad (Credit), and the VA Home Loan

Actinguy1Actinguy1 Registered User regular
in Help / Advice Forum
Greetings, super friends!

My wife and I are considering purchasing our first home, in the Maryland area.

My wife is a stay-at-home mom with no income, but outstanding credit (credit score around 780).

I make about 75k per year before taxes...but have horrible credit from when I was single, poor, and stupid (credit score around 560).

I still owe a little over 3k on my car, but other than that, we have no debt.

I'm an Iraq war veteran, presumably eligible for the VA Home Loan.

My question is this: I have great income but terrible credit. My wife has terrible income but fantastic credit. When we apply for a loan, do they average our scores together? How does this work?

Thanks!

tl;dr My wife has great credit but no income. I have great income but terrible credit. Do we average out when it comes to home loans?

Posts

  • DeebaserDeebaser on my way to work in a suit and a tie Ahhhh...come on fucking guyRegistered User regular
    Banks look at both scores and reports. You do not want to walk into a bank with a credit score that awful even with a VA Loan. If your score is that bad, there has to be some dark, recent shit on your credit report.

  • ceresceres When the last moon is cast over the last star of morning And the future has past without even a last desperate warningRegistered User, Moderator Mod Emeritus
    I have all kinds of discouraging things I want to say here that have nothing to do with credit. I will leave it at "If you decide to buy a house, make sure you have enough money left after your mortgage and monthly expenses to put away a significant amount each month into savings."

    As far as credit goes, my husband's credit was not significantly better than that, and most of his mishaps had been years prior. We did manage to get a mortgage, though, with an unterrible interest rate.

    And it seems like all is dying, and would leave the world to mourn
  • Actinguy1Actinguy1 Registered User regular
    edited November 2012
    Yeah, I did have an unpaid california ticket that went into collections. I'd completely forgotten about it, so obviously we're clearing that up ASAP. The other stuff is one late payment on this, one late payment on that, all four or more years ago.

    Actinguy1 on
  • amateurhouramateurhour One day I'll be professionalhour The woods somewhere in TennesseeRegistered User regular
    Actingguy I am going to PM you because I don't want all my business in this thread but I just went through your exact scenario, I can help.

    are YOU on the beer list?
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Penny Arcade Forums› Help / Advice Forum