I'm in the process of looking at condos/town houses to buy. Based on the location, I know that I will be there at least 5 years.
I am young, and have used cash and debit cards all throughout my life, and so this is the biggest difficulty. The location where I'm moving, it makes financial sense to buy in one sense because the typical rental is 300$ more than my estimated mortgage would be, plus I know I'll be there 5+ years. My current salary is 95k, I have 50k saved for down payment but this increases 4K every month until I buy a home (estimated between 2-4 months). The homes I'm looking at are sweat Equity homes around 340k.
Back to the problems. I have zero debt, college education, rented for 5 years. I don't have any credit scores. Every lender I have talked to (around 5) act like I am some disease cause I don't have a score ("Oh wow!, you need to fix that"). I bank with BOA (4 years) and they basically told me to pound sand cause I don't have a score.
I have started the process of credit cards and a authorized user on my fathers card as well. This is what every lender has told me and then they say call back in 4 months. I would like to get prequalified early because homes move fast here and some for good price.
It seems insane to me that I have 5 years of rental history, a good background and job and yet it seems impossible to get past the "get a credit card and pay it down" talk from every lender.
I have 2 questions (one is more curious because I'm interested in the knowledge that many have on this site).
Is this typical for a young person to have no credit? Maybe some lenders themselves have experience
Second and more importantly, are my options really just pay down a credit card and wait 4 months? I have a person to co-sign as well but lenders told me that is for people with a low income and not for "no credit".
Any info would be great!