Tips on buying a house?

Agree with previous statement... check out Dave Ramsey if you still want to

I would not recommend buying property with a boyfriend with bad credit.

Agree.

DON'T DO IT! You can end up completely financially ruined. I know you don't think so, but please please please exercise restraint. If you buy the house, do it on your own with your own income (keep the boyfriend off the deed) and let him live with you.

My husband and I bought our first house in March of 2011. The process is very long and can be very expensive so be sure you have money set aside besides money for your down payment for repairs and other unforseen issues. Realtors, although they can be helpful, were not good for us. We never found one that wasn't just annoying and spamming us with listings we didn't really want to see. We ended up doing it on our own with the help of a property lawyer who helped us draft our offer letter.

My husband is a veteran, so we went to the bank who took our information and W-2's from last year and prequalified us for a certain amount. We did a VA (veteran's affairs) guaranteed loan so our interest rate was very very low. Then we went house shopping. We saw about 60 houses before we found the one we bought. We had a long list of requirements that we just struggled to find. We put an offer in writing and got it reviewed by an attorney to be sure that we had all our bases covered (also had to comply with the VA home loan program) and gave it to the sellers. Because we did not use a realtor, the sellers were willing to negotiate a much lower price for us. Once they accepted the offer, we had a home inspection done as well as a survey and appraisal which cost about $1,500 total. Once that was done, we had to wait for the VA to send out their own appraiser and file a report, at which point we did the closing. When we moved in, we had to do $8,000 in renovations and repairs including $3,500 of electrical work in the kitchen and addition to the house that our inspector missed, the other $4,500 we knew about in advance and were prepared for.

Long story short, it's a hard long and very expensive process. Do NOT go through this with someone who doesn't manage money well unless you want to end up in bankruptsy or foreclosure.

get married or keep renting

Step one:
Get pre-approved for loan to see how much you can afford
(which already sounds problematic for you right now)
Step 2:
Find a house you like
Step 3:
Make an offer
Step 4:
Once offer accepted, full loan application
Step 5:
Home Inspection
Step 6:
If inspection checks out, buy it, if not, back out

First thing is to get a realtor. The realtor will hook you up w/ a broker to help you get pre-qualified. You must be pre-qualified first. They take your credit and income and come w/ a rough estimate of how much house you can afford. Once that is done, your realtor will look for houses in your price range w/ the specific qualities your're looking for. When you find one you wanna see they will take you out to look. Keep looking til you find one you want, don't settle. Right now w/ housing market being so bad, its a GREAT time to buy a home for cheap. Not sure what your financial situation is, but if you have money saved up that is good, but they do have 100% financing that requires no money down. Also you can get the seller to pay all your closing costs. If you do that, it doesn't leave you much wiggle room to negotiate the price, but it saves you money out of your pocket. They do still have FHA loans that only require 3.5% down. Once you decide on a house, you have to put a contract on it, and the seller has to agree w/ the contract terms. Once that is done, then you have the house appraised. The house must apparaise at or higher than the selling price of the house in order to be financed. Then they will bring you into the bank to do the financing. They are going to ask you for a alot of paper work, bank statements, pay stubs, proof of assets such as 401K, and of course run your credit. Once all of that is approved, then you get your homeowners insurance, give the info to your broker and they contact the closing agency to get your closing package together. It takes about 45 days from time you're approved. The bank will tell you how much to bring to closing. You can have your house inspected, by a certified home inspector, and they look for major issues that could be a problem and let you know what they are. Usually on foreclosed houses the sellers won't pay for the inspection, cause its a bank sale and they just wanna get rid of the house, but you can still get it inspected and pay for it. Once you go to closing, you pay what you need to pay in closing costs, get your keys, your deed, and then thats it. Its your house! Thats the basics, if you have deeper questions, feel free to message me and I will be glad to help you.

get married or keep renting

I agree w/ this statement 100%. You can run into real problems buying a house w/ someone you're not married to.

Do not make an offer on a house until you know what the assessed value is, this should be available online as it is public record.
Reason being- you do not want to make an offer that is super-inflated compared to the assessors office value.

When making an offer on a home always, always always put some type of contingency in the offer. That way, you can back out based on the contingencies you have imposed.

Make sure you have a good downpayment. 20% will save you tons od money in the longrun on mortgage insurance

Good Luck!

It shouldn't matter why he has bad credit, you shouldn't have to explain yourself OP, the question was NOT should I buy a house with someone who has sub-par credit, it was how to go about buying one step by step.

I think some people on here answered with a great answer and ignore the ones that have nothing to do with what you asked.

That being said, We are hoping to buy a house eventually, but we don't know where to start either so luckily for us we will be staying on base housing (hubby is in the military)

This is coming from a mortgage underwriter.

Your debt to income including the mortgage, taxes, insurance and HOA dues should not be over 36% (45% at a streach but most people forget about housing expenses like electricity, water, sewer, etc that you don't have as a renter, also debt to income is based on gross income not net and most peoples take home is only about 70%)

If you don't have a 680+ credit score don't try to get a mortgage with a traditional lender.

Have at least 20% down saved up, put that money into a money market account 2 months prior to applying for mortgage with no deposits or deductions out of that account other then for the down payment or direct deposits from your job. (verifying assets is the hardest part about qualify for a mortgage now of days)

Have 2 years w2s and current paystubs ready to provide (if s/e 2 years tax returns)

I would do what a previous poster said and google first time homebuyer programs and I would also spend some time cleaning up his credit if you don't want to buy the home by yourself. It took me 2 years to clean up my credit mistakes, and it sucked, but I've been living in my home that I just bought by myself for 3 months now! The patience to clean up my credit qualified me for a no money down, no closing cost loan with an awesome interest rate in a payment that I can easily manage. Plus I don't have any other payments to worry about besides my mortgage. Also, ask your friends, parents, coworkers, etc who they used as a realtor. You can get hooked up with someone who will really be helpful and not pushy.

Not to hijack the thread, but WAY TO GO! CONGRATULATIONS! You did a marvelous job...I'm impressed!
This is wonderful advice and lessons well learned....a wise person would learn much from this.

Wow, the first comments are incredibly harsh. So basically I should just dump the love of my life because he has bad credit? Yeah, I'll do that thanks.

I agree with "wow"

YOU will be making a HUGE mistake. HUGE.

1. He has bad credit
2. He frivolously spent money on his girlfriend, he could have said no, she didn't have a gun to his forehead.
3. The previous statement shows he is NOT responsible, had no backbone and spends money on stupid things.
4. YOU AREN'T MARRIED.

I lived with my boyfriend too, not married, huge mistake.

Good luck!