S/o buying a house low income

amother

Thu, Oct 13 2022, 3:21 pm

Just wondering has anyone been able to buy a house with a low income ? If yes how did you do it ? (I don't see ourselves at the moment but just was wondering...) also if you were on any govt programs were you able to buy ?

amother

Goldenrod

Thu, Oct 13 2022, 4:02 pm

We did but we saved and saved for years. More before kids and when the kids were very young, less in the later year. It took us 12 years but we did it.

amother

Thu, Oct 13 2022, 4:12 pm

Thanks. Would you mind explaining breifly how it worked ? Was it basically that you had a really high down payment ? Did the brokers not reject you because of low income ?

amother

Goldenrod

Thu, Oct 13 2022, 4:23 pm

amother OP wrote:

Thanks. Would you mind explaining breifly how it worked ? Was it basically that you had a really high down payment ? Did the brokers not reject you because of low income ?

I wasn't the one who dealt with the brokers, I am terrible with numbers and details. I believe that was how it worked, the down payment was large enough that the monthly payment was the right percentage for the cost of the loan and our income.

amother

Hyacinth

Thu, Oct 13 2022, 4:39 pm

Saved for 17 years
Saved by not buying excess. Less clothes, cheaper food, no vacation.

Live below your income. It’s not always easy, and sometimes it may not be doable. We took a good hard look at our spending.

amother

Lily

Thu, Oct 13 2022, 4:48 pm

In NY there is a mortgage program called SONYMA for lower income families. If you are buying in NY look into it it’s well worth it- lower interest rate and they give you a grant towards closing costs. NJ has a similar program. They help you get a 20% down payment so you don’t have to pay PMI.

amother

Zinnia

Thu, Oct 13 2022, 4:50 pm

Lots of ppl.use cosigner's and then they can buy with little to no income depending on the cosigner.

amother

Stone

Thu, Oct 20 2022, 4:26 pm

amother Zinnia wrote:

Lots of ppl.use cosigner's and then they can buy with little to no income depending on the cosigner.

Pardon my ignorance, but how do these people with little or no income make the monthly mortgage/tax/insurance payments + have money to pay for repairs as they come up?

amother

Broom

Thu, Oct 20 2022, 4:33 pm

amother Stone wrote:

Pardon my ignorance, but how do these people with little or no income make the monthly mortgage/tax/insurance payments + have money to pay for repairs as they come up?

The same way they were paying (or not paying) rent

amother

Ultramarine

Thu, Oct 20 2022, 4:46 pm

When we were younger, we lived very simply, and put away penny by penny, pinching at each expense for years. Unfortunately a rainy day came up. DH lost his job, I was sick and couldn't work and we had unfortunate extra expenses where we needed to dip into our saving we were planning on buying a house with.
We were left with $0.

Now, when we were chocking in our tiny old apartment, we had no choice but to rent a larger space, though don't have a regular income, we're paying an exuberant amount for rent monthly. This is the cost here.
Though we don't have the big means, we could've purchased a house with the rent we pay.
Unfortunately, we don't have a co-signer. We don't like to ask people for favors.

amother

Jade

Thu, Oct 20 2022, 5:18 pm

We bought a house making 35k/yr. We put down 3% through a program for first time home buyers. Through another gov program we got loaned most of the closing costs. We bought a cheap home in the 100,000s that was old. Nothing has been updated since it had been built. The mortgage was about the cost of rent. Still it was a stretch to own a home at that point and very stressful when things had to be repaired and we had no money to do it.
Glad we did it then. Bh the house has tripled in value and the mortgage is now well below our means.

amother

Thu, Oct 20 2022, 6:35 pm

To those who had a low income.. was there any trouble in terms of owning a house and staying on medicaid ?