Anyone who has bought a house

Me and SO are considering buying a house sometime next year and I have some questions on how others went about it.

We are close to having enough saved to put 10% down. We are looking to find something between 50,000-70,000 but the bank said we need a credit score of 650 to qualify for a loan, doesnt matter if we have money to put down or not.

How did you ladies go about buying a house? Our credit is close to qualifying, so should we just wait til we do or do you know of any other way to buy a house with just money down?

Sorry if this sounds really dumb, but my SO is chomping at the bit to get a house while theyre cheap in our area, so he wanted me to ask. Thanks in advance!  

I just went to the bank and asked what the loan options were, what I qualified for, and got a pre-approval letter. I found a realtor, started looking, made an offer, bought a house.

I didn't buy my house with anyone though, just me.
I got an FHA loan with a 0% down payment.
My house was $154,000 and my mortgage is $1100/month.

We purchased our first home at 19 and 20 years old. We had built up our credit by taking out small personal loans, put that loan money aside, and used that same money to pay back the loan. We stayed in that house for 5 years and by that point our credit was excellent.
So, we sold our first home, made a pretty good profit and used that money as a downpayment on our next home. Our credit was so good that our current interest rate is 2%.
Is that kind of what you were asking about?

My husband and I went to the bank to see what we could qualify for. Once they told us that, we found a realtor and told them this is what we're looking for and how much we can spend. We bought our house for $190,000 and put down $8000. Our payments are $1431 a month. Our house now goes for $240,000 if we were to ever to put it on the market. We got it for cheap because the owner sold it as a short sale (he was about to get forclosed on). Good luck!

<blockquote><b>Quoting Twizzlahs:</b>" Me and SO are considering buying a house sometime next year and I have some questions on how others went ... [snip!] ... but my SO is chomping at the bit to get a house while theyre cheap in our area, so he wanted me to ask. Thanks in advance!  "</blockquote>




You can get a copy of your credit report and see what you might need to pay off or dispute to get your score up. If you have only checked with one bank you can try a mortgage broker to see if there are any other loan options you may qualify for. Good luck.

We got a credit card recently to build credit.
We each have utilities in our names and pay on time or early if possible.
I paid off my student loans in full.

Now we both have pretty good credit, and plan on buying in the next year or so.

Thanks ladies!

We have a credt card that we use to pay utilities and small items with an 800 dollar limit to build our credit up some more. My so's plan was to get get the loan and pay the 10% down so our mortgage would be 500-600/ month. I believe what the banker told him was like what the first poster said...build our credit up so we could qualify for the loan and not HAVE to put money down. i was just curious to see what other options were out there. I appreciate the help a lot!