Buying a house with a foreclosure on my credit?!?!?

Question

In 2007 my house foreclosed do to my ex trying to ruin my credit cause I left him. Turns out my name was only on the smaller loan so my credit score didn't even drop! It is still in the mid 600's. I am now married and my husband just had to repo his car since there was no other way to get out from under it. We live in Northern California where houses left and right on every street and being foreclosed. We are considering buying a house since the market is so bad....but a good time to buy because practically every house is bank owned. Besides my foreclosure, my credit history is flawless! My husband's is not too good. Is there any possibility that we could buy a bank owned home and get approved for it on our own? Are banks starting to look past foreclosures since it is so common now these days? We have a one year old and want to start planning on our second baby so it's time to find a more permanant home and get out of apartment living! Any advise will help!! Thank you!

Answer 1

It's great that the rest of your credit is flawless but I'm tempted to think that the flawed portion is the most unforgiving.

Bank are most certainly not looking past foreclosures, if anything they're looking dead-centre at them to reduce repeat statistics.

Moreover the foreclosure isn't even matured yet (more than 2 years old) it only happened in 2007. If your current husband has a repo, it doesn't seem that your in the greatest financial shape.

Before baby#2, house # 2 or car #2, make your finances #1 !

Answer 2

After seeing the financial bloodbath that the banking industry has encountered for bad loans, you want to borrow money and just have them overlook the flaws in your credit history.

1.  YOU signed for a mortgage and YOU didn't pay it back.  (You do know that eventually the money that you didn't pay back will be charged off, you will receive a 1099-C and this will become taxable income to you, right?)  The fact that it happened due to a divorce does not excuse it.

2.  Your husband borrowed money to buy a car, stopped paying on the loan and seems to think the repo made that even.  Guess what, they'll sell the car and send him a 1099-C for the difference and yeah, that's taxable income too.

If there is any sanity in the world, you won't be borrowing for a house or a car for a long, long time.

Answer 3

Considering both of you have a history of not paying your debts, it will be tough.

Good luck.

Answer 4

"...there was no other way to get out from under it. "  Really?  How about PAY FOR IT.  If he made a bad decision, walking away from it is not going to help.  Sometimes we make bad decisions and it ends up costing us, or sticking us with a car we don't want longer than we'd like.  Personal Responsibility.

I would think that if you want a house you had better save up a down payment and work on cleaning up his credit.  Once his score comes up a bit and you have a 10% to 20% down payment, you should be pretty good.  

Answer 5

O'bama is going to buy a house for everyone who was foreclosed on by "The Man." So just hang in there. Seriously, you will have a tough time without very good employment numbers and a hefty deposit, maybe 25 to 25 percent. It's not impossible though. Maybe you should rent for a while. Try again in 3 to 5 years and have your husband clean his credit up.  

Answer 6

It can be a good time to buy in this market, but you will have to have a bigger down payment to do it! Your credit score will matter even more now because of the vast amount of home foreclosures especially in California, the #1 state for them!

I would try to get pre-qualified before I went out home shopping and see just what is going to be needed from you! Subscribe to a credit monitoring service so you can see for yourself just what is in your reports! Now you will know what the lenders will look at!

Answer 7

I wish there was a straight answer. In this country, owner financed home are easy to buy. If you want a foreclosure price, you need to buy

direct from the owner and let him avoid the foreclosure. Some of these

loans are transferable. Craigs list is a good starter. Also banks that are desperate may make you an offer of takeover before it hits their books. Once it hits, they have no choice to send it to legal. The effort is hard and realtors would not help because you are competing with them.