Moving and buying a new house

[Administrator]

Hi All! My wife and I are looking to buy a house in either in either Las Vegas or Colorado Springs (haven’t decided where yet). We would like to buy a newly built house if possible but are willing to settle for one that is on the market and is fairly new. Our background: • We live in Hawaii and rent a small condo • My wife is an immigrant and just opened up a secured credit card but otherwise has little credit history. • I had a CH7 bankruptcy back in 2002. No missed payments within the last year or longer. Credit scores from the 3 bureaus: 632, 643, 677. I think I need to clean up my report a little as I believe the 677 is closer to the mark. • We currently do not have any loans or other debt. Any credit card debt is paid off the same month it is incurred. • My wife is a stay at home mom. I make approximately 96k pretax and have been with my current employer over a year and in the industry for 7. • We have approximately 150k in liquid savings. • We are looking to get a loan for approximately 400k • We are willing to put down around 40k, more is doable but less is better • I am former military and qualify for a VA loan but unsure what loan type is best • We would like to buy and move as soon as possible and plan to stay in the home at least 5 years or longer The problem that we have is I will not have a job in the new location in which we will be buying our house in. However, I plan to go back overseas to the Middle East as a contractor for a year once my family is settled in the new house. While I don’t actually have any job offer letters at this point, I am extremely confident I will be able to get a job (working IT) without much trouble once I start looking. The problem is a chicken before the egg type deal. We want to go ahead and buy a house and settle into it before I leave, but we need to have an established income in order to get the loan. With this in mind, one solution we were thinking of is to narrow down the area where we want to live (and pick the house we want there) and then get the loan while I have my current job. Once we get the loan approved, then I would quit this job and we would move and settle in. Once settled in, I would go ahead and look for my contracting job in the Middle East. Between the time that I left my current employer and the time that I received my first paycheck as a contractor we would be using some of our savings to tide us over. While there is risk to this plan (i.e. the possibility of a long delay in finding a new position), I believe it’s our best option. I can’t think of any alternative that will allow us to buy a house somewhere besides Hawaii and still get a loan. One of the reasons I haven’t been searching for a new job overseas yet is because once I am hired, they expect you to leave for that job almost immediately. It is really important to me to ensure my family is settled before I leave. It just seems like too much to lock down a new job, find a house, and get a loan all at the same time. Incidentally, any job I get overseas will pay between 100 and 220k with the first 88k or so of it tax free which is why I am considering going back over there. While I am gone my wife’s mother will be staying at our new place to help out with our 2 year old daughter which is a great help. We don’t want to “deceive” the loan officer by telling them I make 96k and then quitting my job once the loan is approved. Is there an alternative? If not, and we go ahead and go with this plan is better to just tell the loan officer that ya I have a job now, but there will be a gap in employment once the loan is approved? Seems like a fast way to NOT get a loan approved... Some other questions we have: • Is it unethical to do what we are thinking? Is it illegal? • Is there a difference between buying a house currently on the market, or a brand new house that might not even be built yet? How would this affect our situation? • How long from start to finish does a loan processes take and at what point is it “for sure”? • Once we settle on a house, at what point would it be safe to put my resignation in without jeopardizing the loan? It would be a tragedy for us to lose the loan after I left my job because we acted to quickly. Thanks for any help or advice offered!


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(Source: mortgagefit.com)