Planning on mortgage.. Any advice?

Question

I want to buy a house in the beginning of next year. I started prepping at the beginning of 2015. Ive paid off all my debts, so no open loans at all. I want to apply for a FHA loan with chase since I have several credit cards and my bank account with them. Are my approval odds good? Are the good bank to get a mortgage with? Here's my current scenario. So far this year, I've only had 1 inquiry for each bureau, so on application I'll have 1 inquiry on each bureau. My oldest account is an authorized user account so my average age is probably 1.5 to 2 years. My current salary is 66000. The ONLY bill I have is have is car insurance. All my lates have been paid and are from when i was 18 and careless. Unfortunatelly they did go to collections. Most of the revolving debt is items on an expense report for work, so I can take it down to 0%, if necessary. Ill be putting about 10% down, maybe more, and am looking in the price range of 160-180k in Texas. I have been at my current job for over 3 years. Also im a first time home buyer! Current FICO 08 scores: Experian 690 Transunion 714 Equifax 708 Below are my credit stats:1st line - Experian2nd line - Transnion3rd line - Equifax Revolving Debt$3,118.00$3,118.00$3,118.00Revolving Credit Limit$98,900.00$98,900.00$98,900.00Revolving Credit Usage3%3%3%Real Estate Debt$0.00$0.00$0.00Installment Debt$0.00$0.00$0.00Total Debt$7,773.00$3,118.00$3,118.00Accounts Ever Late222Accounts In Collections000Time Since Negative4.6 year(s)5.1 year(s)4.6 year(s)Inquiries2111Oldest Account17.9 year(s)17.9 year(s)17.9 year(s)Average Account Age2.8 year(s)2.8 year(s)2.8 year(s) Also after I close on the house I plan on getting 1-2 credit cards about a month later, to help finance some appliances. Would a new mortgage have a major effect on cc approval? 

Answer 1

Michael982 wrote:
Also im not sure that FHA is the best route or should I go with a conventional mortgage? Also would a chase pre-qualification good to inquire about, just to see where I stand? Only thing is that i saw them mention like a $300 fee just to check worthiness.Chase didn't make me pay anything till the appraisal was going to be ordered, and this was the case both times I went down that road in the last two months. I think you know pretty much where you stand from what you describe, and I second the DallasLoanGuy recommendation as an excellent Texas LO.  Really if you want to know where you are credit wise, spend the $60 here at myFICO for a 3 Bureau instant-in-time report and get your mortgage scores, you might be able to optimize your reports a little bit based on how your revolving utilization is distributed but that's an easy thing to sort out with a few strategic payments.  I would do that before making the pull here personally if you're looking to wait a little bit... wouldn't surprise me if your mortgage trifecta was somewhat higher actually from what you posted, especially if you have any installment history on your report at all. Play with the Chase prequal tool if you're interested; they aren't the best rates on Agency type loans but every single time I put in the numbers it was spot on to their own rate sheet, so you can get some idea on that one before you go talk to anyone.  FWIW's Chase's two major selling points are they'll give you 1% back if you auto ACH it out a Chase checking account and they keep the servicing on most of their mortgages as I understand it.  Beyond that though like any big bank it can really be hit or miss on which LO you get and some of their policies are sort of infuriating... I got lucky and got a good one seemingly but he's California region. Also I'm not really sure how a new mortgage affects various types of reports from a score perspective; however, I absolutely plan on getting my own post-closing credit cards done and out of the way pretty much as soon as I get the keys as I might get slapped non-trivially when the mortgage reports; however, my scores which most credit cards underwrite on are somewhat inflated on my current installment utilization, if you don't have any installment history at all will likely be different and you might even get a boost scorewise just by having an open installment loan on the FICO 8 model... definitely it's an underwriting boost, nothing says financial stability like a mortgage line in some respects .