Jan 2015
- My wife and I were in the market to buy a home and we got preapproved. The credit pull revealed a negative mark on her credit report (sub-600 FICO score) which was for a student loan that went into collections. We ended up using a sizeable chunk of our downpayment to settle the debt under the condition that the negative mark was removed, and we postponed buying a home. At that time, we had a household income of $95k with about $2300 in monthly expenditures.
June 2015
- We moved to another state to pursue a job (same line of work) for a 60% bump in pay. Wife received a promotion at her old job (she was allowed to work remotely) - our household income jumped up to $134k.
August 2015
- We sought a financial advisor who pulled my wife's credit, and her score had jumped up to 720, and there was no record of the negative mark. My credit score has stayed consistent between 710-730 during this time.
December 2015
- We've been using online resources to compare recently sold homes and we're happy with single family homes that fall in the $240-$275k range in our area.
Questions:
Is a $250-275k mortgage realistic with a monthly gross income of $11400 and monthly expenditures around $2200-2500 (mostly for student loans)?
Is it a good/bad idea to get preapproved again within 1 year or should we wait longer?
We've tried to recuperate as much of our downpayment as possible, but we've only been able to save $15k. Should we sit/wait through a market that is super hot?
How will the recent paybump and job change affect our chances of obtaining the mortgage we want?
Appreciate your help and welcome brutal honesty and advice.