One step closer

To a house.

T and I went to a first-time home buyers class this week, and it was very informative. They walked us through everything you have to do when you are buying a house, what the different stages are, what you have to do to make an offer, how a real estate agent helps, etc.

And they also talked about money and mortgages. They do have no-money down programs, but you have to pay closing costs. Or you can pay down "points" to get a better mortgage price, or if you put down 0-5% of the cost, you get a much better interest rate. We figure we won't be able to hit 5% by the time we're thinking of looking, but we will easily have 3% down, possibly 4% down, which makes our interest rate MUCH better.

They also talked about what determines your interest rate, and while credit score was a big factor, so is debt to income ratio, and my debt to income ratio is fabulous. And they don't look at total debt you owe, they look at your monthly payments. And I only have a small school loan and the car payment, which they pretty much expect everyone to have. One thing they said was make sure you don't buy a new car before trying to get a mortgage, because they don't want to see new debt right before you qualify for a mortgage.

And they didn't talk about job history. They said you need two years of W-2s, two months of pay stubs and proof of your assets. I asked about if you are a contractor or self-employed, how you verify that, and they just said they just look at the tax returns for that.

So I feel like this is a goal we can really work towards, and we will continue to save as much as we can and pay down my school loan and start paying on Tim's.