Did you purchase a home when you started DS?

[Atticus]

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Hey everyone,
I was just wondering if very many people purchase homes when they go to dental school, and if so, how you did it. I am in a situation right now where both my wife and I have good jobs with a great yearly earning, so I know that we could pre qualify for a loan while we are both working... But what do people do when they arent really earning much when they go to school? How do they qualify for home loans? My wife is a dental hygienist so we will have a decent income while in school, but we will obvoiusly have a lot of debt ( mainly tuition loans) and our car payment.

I was thinking that we could pre-qualify while we are working, then purchase a home during the prequalification period set forth by the lender, but idk I'd that would work...

What did you do? Thanks!

 

[MWUDMD2013]

My wife and I bought a house in April. At that time, we had enough income to be approved for a loan that was a little less than the area we were looking at. Her parents graciously co-signed and it bumped us up. Buying a house did not prevent me from getting student loans and the student loans did not prevent me from getting the house. I guess it just depends on your personal situation as well as the amount of debt you currently have. Overall, good experience. Now only if that stinking $8000 first time home owners credit would come through.

 

[JPDMD]

I bought a house before starting Dental school. I am glad that I did. Although my mortgage is slightly higher than what I would be paying in rent, the money that I am spending is going into my investment instead of my landlords investment. As MWUDMD said the my mortgage didn't effect my student loans at all. If you were to get the student loans before the mortgage it might make a difference when looking at your debt to income ratio. Your idea of prequalifying works as long as your jobs are in the same area as your house. If your income is in a different area, your house wouldn't be considered your primary residence and that can make a difference with taxes as well as getting a loan. Lenders know that people would default on their second house before the primary residence, so the interest rates would be higher in most cases.

 

[Oracle DMD]

i think over the past year, its gotta be something like 20 dental students bought houses out here in AZ. property value dropped really low and the students are scooping up DEALS! we're talkin 1600-2100sqft, 3-4bdrm houses from 120k-180k within 10miles of school. thats at or under about 1000/mo.

 

[Drcbc]

Fours years is too short to make up the difference and deal with the uncertaintly of selling when you graduate unless there are significant market increases, we are in a time of significant decreases so I would avoid it.

 

[Oracle DMD]

Fours years is too short to make up the difference and deal with the uncertaintly of selling when you graduate unless there are significant market increases, we are in a time of significant decreases so I would avoid it.

idk about that. if you buy a 3-4 bdrm house by a university and your payments stay low, you could rent it out easily if the market doest recover very quickly. when real estate crashed, the renting market pretty much stayed the same.

so your house payment could be 1000 (+100 for HOA and/or taxes) and you could rent it out for 1100-1500/month until you feel like selling it.

 

[Cymbidium]

We did. Bought a 900sq. ft. apartment in Brooklyn last August before I started school. We just had it re-appraised and its already gone up 30K. Definitely a good idea to purchase before you start school! I don't think we would have qualified for our rate without both of our incomes on the paperwork.

 

[mike3kgt]

I would be very careful about purchasing a home. The major advantage to renting is that you are flexible and if you want to walk away in 4 years, done. You don't have to worry about listing, selling, or possibly renting in the future if the market doesn't recover in time or goes down.

I purchased a condo 2nd year of dental school. I did all the math to the tee like any super anal retentive dental student would do. I had the math worked out so well that I couldn't go wrong... I was told that housing has NEVER gone down in value significantly before. Then 2007 happened. I still have the condo and it's been on the market for the past 2 years. I now am forced to rent it because I can no longer afford the mortgage/condo dues/taxes.

Am I still going to be OK in the end? Yup because I'm doing my math again and figuring out how to work it out. Has this whole process caused me undue amounts of stress, you bet. Having this condo has affected decisions regarding practice, further school and life decisions. Thank God that my family lives near the condo and can take care of it for me since I am no longer near it.

You must look at things beyond just the rent / mortgage economics. Make sure you study the intangibles such as 1. if you are stuck with this home for 1-3 years after d-school, is that acceptable? 2. can you REALLY afford it? 3. Do you have time to manage homeownership instead of just calling the maintenance guy? 4. Are you buying in a market that is relatively unaffected from the real-estate bubble?

Looking back almost 5 years after the fact, I truly wish I did not buy a home during dental school.

 

[SugarNaCl]

My husband and I couldn't afford one, but if we had a large savings and he had been guaranteed a good job (really good job) it would have been wise of us to do. Sometimes the monthly payment on rent for an apartment is similar to a monthly mortgage payment on a house.

Smart if you can afford it... but tuition here at VCU went up from 36K to 52K for an out of stater and is expected to still increase more over the next year or so. There is NO WAY we could have swung that.

 

[americanpierg]

property taxes are murder...

 

[Oracle DMD]

property taxes are murder...

not in AZ, but def in cali!

 

[gryffindor]

You must look at things beyond just the rent / mortgage economics. Make sure you study the intangibles such as 1. if you are stuck with this home for 1-3 years after d-school, is that acceptable? 2. can you REALLY afford it? 3. Do you have time to manage homeownership instead of just calling the maintenance guy? 4. Are you buying in a market that is relatively unaffected from the real-estate bubble?

Looking back almost 5 years after the fact, I truly wish I did not buy a home during dental school.

These would be all the reasons I rented for 4 years of dental school in one city and 3 years of residency in another. That is $54000 in rent over 7 years for the privilege of flying hundreds of miles away the day after graduation. Having all maintenance headaches dealt with by merely picking up the phone and making a request left me lots of needed time for memorizing minutia in dental school and watching TV in residency.

 

[mike3kgt]

....left me lots of needed time for ....... watching TV in residency.

So you did an Ortho residency?