Should I try to buy a home next spring, or am I being unrealistic?
I’m in Massachusetts and I’ve been going back and forth on whether I should try to buy my first home around May 2027. I’d love some honest opinions from people who have gone through the mortgage process. I’ll be moving in May 2027 and wanted to see if buying a house would actually in the long run save me money than to keep renting.
I’m a nurse and make around $115K gross. My credit score is currently about 671. I have around $45K in total debt, with about $600/month in required payments. The biggest issue is that I don’t have savings right now, but my plan is to save aggressively between now and April so I have enough for the down payment and closing costs.
I’m hoping to stay around $350K, although I’m open to adjusting that based on what I can actually qualify for. I’m looking mostly in Massachusetts and southern New Hampshire.
The complicated part is that I’m already on a mortgage for my sister’s house. The house is around $900k and there’s ~700k left on the mortgage and the mortgage is in my name, but I don’t live there. My sister lives there and makes the mortgage payments. I’m trying to figure out if a lender would still count that entire mortgage against me when calculating my debt-to-income ratio, or if there’s a way to document that she’s making the payments and have it excluded.
I’m also looking into FHA, MassHousing, ONE Mortgage and other first-time buyer programs. My credit isn’t perfect, so I’m not sure what I’d realistically qualify for. 680 on transunion
I have a boyfriend, but we aren’t married and don’t live together. I’m thinking about buying the house in my name. We do plan to live together in the fall where he would contribute to the mortgage without his name being on the mortgage. We do plan on getting married in 2028 or 29 my thinking process is after five years of owning the home we can sell it or rent it and use the equity to buy our next house.
One other thing I’m considering is working with someone who buys houses at auction, renovates them and then sells them. She basically told me that if my budget were $350K, she could potentially buy a house at auction for around $150K, put $100K-$150K into a full renovation, and then sell it to me for around $350K. I’m interested in the idea because I could potentially get a completely renovated house, but I’m wondering if a mortgage lender would even finance a transaction like that.
So I guess my main questions are: Is buying a $350K house next spring realistic for me? Would the $700K mortgage that’s already in my name prevent me from getting another mortgage even though my sister makes the payments? And should I start talking to lenders now to see what I could qualify for?
I’m trying to be realistic and don’t want to become house poor. I’d appreciate any advice, especially from people who have dealt with a similar situation with a mortgage that someone else is actually paying.