how to save for down payment in med school

[perplexed2]

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My wife and I would like to buy a house when I start my residency in 3 years. I'm wondering how you can go about setting aside a decent chunk of cash for a down payment without having the loan folks think I need to use this to pay for tuition. The financial aid person at my school is not the type to offer, umm, creative ideas to work with the system. I have a son so could put money in his name if this would work. Any insight? Anyone done anything along these lines?

 

[xanthines]

Disclaimer: I'm as dumb as a sack of hammers.

Since loan apps require the info of immediate family members (parents, offspring, spouses, etc), your son may not be the best. My personal, usless recommendation is to find a different relative (ie aunt, cousin) or friend to dole out some money. Make sure you can trust them, though!

I believe $7000/yr is the amount you can give to a person until the IRS starts taxing those transactions. Although you may want to watch out for any transaction as detailed by Wired:

http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,67249,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_2

You could always call the Fin Aid office and withold your name to ask some questions. I guess you could call any school's Fin aid office for that matter!

Just my $00.02,

-X

My wife and I would like to buy a house when I start my residency in 3 years. I'm wondering how you can go about setting aside a decent chunk of cash for a down payment without having the loan folks think I need to use this to pay for tuition. The financial aid person at my school is not the type to offer, umm, creative ideas to work with the system. I have a son so could put money in his name if this would work. Any insight? Anyone done anything along these lines?

 

[nemesis]

I bought a home post med-school and I was offered 100% financing. My closing costs were < $1000.

Many banks are more than happy to have doctors as clients, and will offer deals not available to the general public.

 

[Blade28]

I'm going with 100-103% financing.

 

[gvmatt]

i had my down payment in a mutual fund. i was worried about that large of an amount when i first started applying. but it is not considered income, and therefore did not contribute to my efc. i am not sure how that all worked. i know i had to report just the interest and dividends that i made annually, i don't even think i ever had to report the full amount that was in the fund. in any case my efc was always $0 for med school, and now i have the chunk for my 10% down.

 

[surg4me]

I am in the process of purchasing a condo. This is what I found out regarding gift monies.

The IRS allows up to $11,000/yr per giver per receiver in 2004 and 2005 in "gift money" for down payments.

If there are 2 parents, for example (mom and dad), and they both agree to give a gift to you (they will have to file a Gift Tax Form 709), the total can be $22,000 without any tax penalty to the givers. There's no tax penalty to you either. The tax form still needs to be filed even if an individual is giving a gift. Any gift amount greater than the limit is taxed (for a gift of $12,000, $1,000 is taxable).

I mentioned "per receiver" at the top because 2 parents can give multiple gifts, say to 2 of their children, up to $22,000 to each child, without penalty.

A lender will require that the prospective buyer obtain signed "gift letter" (generic form that they will provide) from each person giving you a gift so that they can document that the money you received has no strings attached.

hope this help...