Want to make sure we’re getting a fair deal (not really sure how accurate those bank rate.com things are). Also, the 6.5% thing is startling. But looking at the 30 year rates, it’s about average. Wonder how many years it’ll be before it gets back to 3-4%…
Spouse Income My spouse isn’t a U.S. citizen and doesn’t have a SSN or ITIN. So we can’t put her on the mortgage. When it comes to D:I ratio, how can we include her income and/or savings (since she buys our groceries, clothes, etc. but through her bank account)? Should we be transferring money from her German bank account to my U.S. account? Or depositing cash into my account?
@binyamin1 1.) Feb, 2022 (not too recent)
2.) 2.625%
3.) 30 year(first time loan and had funding fee)
4.) bought $1000 of points
5.) used a local lender to the area we bought at. We bought virtually through zoom (with local family)from Texas.
I highly recommend that you look at OwnUp. We used them to shop multiple lenders and got a better deal than the local one we wanted to use. I then used the better deal I got from them to get the local lender to match the better deal. OwnUp had great customer service too. Just make sure when you apply to lenders that you do all of them within a couple of days of each other.
Not sure on the foreign spouse thing. The lenders definitely didn’t look to closely at my wife’s stuff compared to mine.
@commander Wow, what a rate! Crazy how only 7 months difference is increasing the payment (interest) $800/month on average homes where we are getting stationed at.
My agent did recommend someone at OwnUp. Perhaps I should apply through them (in addition to another broker).
@binyamin1 We’re very grateful that it played out to get that rate. Supply of houses where I would want to live in was definitely lower back then though. We definitely overpaid on the house but getting someone to take a VA loan over cash offers in February was a struggle
@binyamin1 We're looking right now. I have good credit but my husband's is in the 680s and so I'm assuming they have to go by his. We are looking at 6.25% if we pay points, 6.65% if we don't.
It really sucks. I remember not too long ago when 2.25% was available.
What we are being told is that if we buy now with a high rate, they expect rates to drop toward the end of the year/next year and we could refinance for a much better rate (they're thinking it'll drop into the 4's by next year).
@waverly I think rates will remain above 5.5% through 2023. Any LO promising a rate drop in the near future is more interested in keeping you on the line right now. If I were you, I'd prepare for 3 years at current rates to be safe.
@waverly It's possible rates could come down sooner than this. We'd need a prolonged economic downturn to get the Fed to not only stop raising rates, but to start lowering them. Rates always go up faster than they come down, it's just the way of things. The Fed rate isn't the main catalyst for mortgage rates but it's still a big influencer. This doesn't take into account any possible government intervention programs to help people refinance like we saw in 2009 (HARP) that could help alleviate the financial burden of buyers stuck in 5%+ rates and high balance mortgages from mid-2019 through early 2022.
@charles15 That makes sense. I'm a "better safe than sorry" kind of person so I definitely don't want to buy a house where we're not going to be able to pay the mortgage. Unfortunately we're PCSing to a high cost of living area, got kids and dogs, and so anything even halfway decent is SO expensive! We're basically maxing out BAH, maybe even a couple hundred over, but we're used to living well under BAH so it's going to be an adjustment.
@waverly I hear you. I moved from a low-ish cost of living area (Jacksonville, FL) to a high-ish cost of living area (Denver) and it took some adjusting. At least with a VA loan you get better rates than most people (using a conventional loan) get, and the qualification guidelines are more flexible. And you get a cheap, easy way to refinance in the future.
@waverly Same here. Going to the DC area. Don’t want to spend more than we can afford. And with interest rates going past 6% for a 780 credit score, ”more than we can afford” is pretty much every home in an okay neighborhood that’s in a school district better than 4/10 rating.
But also don’t want to use max BAH to rent a 2 bedroom apartment with no yard for pets, kids sharing a room, while paying down someone else’s assets.
@binyamin1 Yeah, exactly. It's so rough trying to figure out how we're going to afford to live.
I've been counting on interest rates going down so we can refi. And cutting our grocery budget by a lot. No more eating out ever, and no more beer on Sundays lol. It just scares me trying to buy a house and knowing we can't afford it unless we make a huge lifestyle change.
