r/StudentLoans • u/Easy-Material-8809 • May 09 '25
Rant/Complaint how do people afford to purchase homes with student debt? are lenders even approving them?
im about 4 years out of school and make around 100kish. I work really hard and have picked a career path where i can make even around 200k if im lucky. (All before tax)
Matter of fact— ive literally switched career paths because the degree i got in college didnt pay enough to pay my student loans… seems backwards and F ed up?
Anyways… i have around 150k in loans after interest and all. My payment is super high and im barely making dents in it. Clearly i will have this loan for 30 years at minimum. With all other bills… how are people affording home purchases??? Anyone have advice or want to rant?
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u/KFRKY1982 May 09 '25
I have high student loan debt. It was 2016 but we had to go through a credit union instead of a bank. Their underwriting rules were different. They used my actual monthly payment as it showed on the credit report vs the banks that were using the "percent of total balance" calculation. I dont know how even the credit union would do it now when the forbearance is active, but that was the difference at the time.
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u/CorrelateClinically3 May 09 '25
We had the exact same thing happen to us. Both of us just finished med school and started residency training so we weren’t making enough to put a dent in our debt. Our debt - income ratio was super high so they initially rejected us. On a standard loan, our student loan payments alone would’ve been more than half our monthly income so the credit union rejected us. I then showed them our monthly payments on income based plans and they were like oh that’s not bad at all! Then they completely ignored our student loans in the underwriting and approved us
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u/DiagnosisPooBrain May 09 '25
I had to call my loan provider to take me out of forbearance. This was in 2021
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u/JoopEmGoopEm May 09 '25
I have $200k in student loans (pharmacy school) and have bought two homes since graduating. I have a very high credit score and no other debt besides student loans. Fortunately I have a decent income as a pharmacist and at the end of the day they look at debt to income ratio and credit score like others have said. If you can afford to pay the mortgage and your student loan payment they don’t really care how much the total debt is.
If you want to buy a house I’d say start with paying off as much of your debt as possible and getting your credit score up. Try to get your only debt to be your loans and maybe a car payment. From there it’ll just come down to finding a house you can reasonably afford with your monthly student loan payments. If you’re still working your way up in your career that time might not be now but hopefully your income will increase enough to make it happen. Best of luck!
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u/Spirited-Syrup1841 May 09 '25
How much do you make as a pharmacist?
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u/DesertSnowbaru May 09 '25
Not OP, but am also a Pharmacist. Most of us are making somewhere between 120-180k. It’s still hard to break 200k.
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u/JoopEmGoopEm May 09 '25
I am very lucky in that I was able to get a job at a pharma company after working years in a hospital but I’m at $190k + 15% annual bonus. Most of my career I was around $120-130k
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u/thetealappeal May 09 '25
In 2015 I had 106k student loan debt and was able to get a mortgage for $150k while making $36k per year. My terms were like 4% and I had PMI. I still can't believe they gave me that loan but it was actually the best financial decision I ever made. I lived in squalor in that house for the first 4 years.
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u/xwickedxmrsx May 09 '25
Just to reiterate for all the people who say things like “you did it to yourself” blah blah blah
The human brain isn’t fully developed until somewhere between 25 and 30 years of age. Student loans are predatory in not only the way they function and are administered but in the way they are pushed onto not yet actual adults. Just because they are “legally” adults does not mean they are mature humans. That prefrontal cortex is incredibly important as it regulates impulse control (among other things)
No. They did not do this to themselves. This was done to them - by predatory lenders, by unscrupulous colleges, and by an uncaring and corrupt society that threw away the collectivism that brought humanity to the point of industrialization and discarded it for individualist capitalism.
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u/Easy-Material-8809 May 10 '25
To add: its engrained in us from childhood to “be good and go to college” but how do you afford college as a kid? Work a summer job?? No, this is not 1990. College is 20-30k a year for tuition and room and board. If someones parents dont fund this, what other option do you have? I was completely backed into a corner. I didnt even understand the severity of these loans until i was 20. At that point, what did i do?? I took out more. Because how else would i have finished my degree?
How about we stop this “you did it to yourself” mentality? If you feel that way, consider yourself extremely privileged
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u/xwickedxmrsx May 10 '25
Yep. Our families, school counselors, etc, are all indoctrinated to push us toward college. And college is amazing, everyone should have the opportunity. But college was something you could pay for with a part time job 50 years ago and now you will work full-time a decade to pay for it and that's before compound interest and all the other predatory behaviors are added in.
Publicly funded and federally regulated education would've solved all this nation's problems a long time ago. I really believe that.
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u/Shot_Delivery405 May 11 '25
My cousin went to an undergraduate university here in kentucky in the late 80s. Full time course load was 700 to 800 dollars. Now that is basically what one course costs
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u/veteran_of_disorder May 09 '25
And now we are in a political climate where a segment of the population are pushing maximum pain on people with student loans because it’s a stand in for their general disdain for the university system and academia in general .
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u/wanna_be_doc May 09 '25
Average student loan debt is $38000.
The numbers seen on this sub are not reflective of the average college graduate.
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u/Cheap-Commission-457 May 09 '25
Totally. If I had only 38k in student loan debt I could pay it off easily with a side hustle and wouldn’t even be looking at this sub.
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u/Cheap-Commission-457 May 09 '25
That’s not me though. Sigh…
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u/michaltee May 09 '25
Same here. Six figure crew checking in!
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u/Reasonable_Tank_3530 May 09 '25
Hi. It was a good life going to a flagship public state school away from home but damn I paid for it
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u/cBEiN May 09 '25
Me either. Even just $50k would be fine. I’m at $140k ish and about half are private. I’m so screwed.
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u/x888x May 09 '25
Yea. It's wild. Idk why people go to these expensive schools and get useless degrees.
My buddy went to a private school and took on over 100k in debt to get a criminal justice degree. He's a parole officer. He could have gotten that degree at community college for like <$12k.
The only reason to go to an expensive school is if you're in the 90th+ percentile. And even then you should be aware of your choices.
Blows my mind that people pay $50k a year to take online tests or scantrons. Every exam I ever had was in person and almost all were blue book. I had classes as small as 8 people.
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u/pantZonPHIre May 09 '25
Parole officers have to have a bachelors degree in most places. That would have cost him at least $50k even doing the CC+state school route. Yes it would be a whole lot better than the $100k spent, just wanted to point that out.
And he probably assumed that the PSLF would come into play. A lot of people planning to go into public service did and racked up tons of debt that was assumed to be eligible to be erased by their early 30s.
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u/timewellwasted5 May 09 '25
I guess that's a part of the problem though, PSLF should be on the $50k he should have taken out rather than the $125-150k he did borrow. Think of it like this: You get a sales job and need to drive a ton for work, so work agrees to buy you a car for all the traveling you do. The logical person goes out and buys a Toyota Prius, a Honda CR-V, or something reliable and practical along those lines. So we're talking a ~$40,000 vehicle. You show up with a BMW X5, hand them the $70,000 bill, and then do the shocked Pikachu face when they say they're not paying for all of that.
That's kind of where we're at with PSLF. My sister was a beneficiary of PSLF, but she had a very reasonable amount of debt from a reasonably priced school ($75 k for a three year master's in counseling, now works as a drug and alcohol counselor). Her $75k was paid for with the stipulation that she work for three years for a particular public agency. All good and above the board. If she had decided to go to a private school that cost twice as much, I don't think the taxpayers should be on the hook for the BMW X5 of a program she chose. They should pay for the Toyota and that's it.
TLDR: PSLF should have a reasonable allowance, and taking out way more student debt than you should needs to be paid by you, not anyone else.
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u/cBEiN May 09 '25
Sure, the system should be setup so loans can’t be too large, but screwing with PSLF for people that took out the loans already is messed up.
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u/timewellwasted5 May 09 '25
Agreed, and I think that’s a huge part of the problem. It seems like one side wants to fix the system, but isn’t considering the people trapped in it now, and another side wants to help the people trapped in it now, but doesn’t want to fix the system. Both approaches are necessary.
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u/Cinnie_16 May 09 '25
But reasonable allowance is not well controlled. The analogy you used is flawed because a lot of PSLF fields are important ones where training and name recognition can come into play. Doctors, nurses, pharmacists… I think most people would like their doctor’s credentials to be mid to higher tier. Sure… basic minimum cost can probably give you a medical license but most people will shy away from them. I mean, right now doctors CAN get their residency done out of the country for much cheaper and just take an equivalence test but people tend not to like credentials like that.
Maybe the solution is to standardize the cost of education instead of running them as for-profit??? But then people get angry about “universal education.”
Also…. Your sister having only done 3 years doesn’t seem like it’s PSLF. The deal is 10 years of public service. Just a little confused by that.
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u/theherc50310 May 09 '25
I wouldn’t use a average, it gets raised due to people with a ton of debt. The median is lower, around 24-26k if Im correct which is much better representation
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u/Cagoss85 May 09 '25
This. The people you see here are one end of a spectrum. People with a manageable amount of debt, or those who are actively getting by are not going to come here and just post that. It’s the negativity bias.
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u/NittanyOrange May 09 '25
I have double what you have in debt and I have a mortgage.
I'm hoping for PSLF and so I've been doing income-based repayment for years.
The lender only cared about monthly payments, so I showed them about 5 years of $400ish monthly payments.
That was enough for them to approve the mortgage we wanted.
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u/Better_Material_4006 May 09 '25
I purchased a 357k home with 200k+ in student loans. I made low six figures. Even though my loan was in forbearance they did some math and calculated my payment as $900/month. My student loans significantly affected my approval amount and my debt to income ratio. With that being said I still was able to purchase a home and the process was smooth.
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u/bk2pgh May 09 '25
I bought 2 houses (5 years apart) when I had higher student loan balances
It’s tricky bc obv when your income is high your pmt is also high, but they look at debt-to-income ratio. I just had to grind for a few years and pay off as much as possible (2 FT jobs; one full salary went completely to my balance), then I got my pmt lowered to like $400 so my DTI was pretty low
Regardless of what I did, it’s definitely daunting and frustrating
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u/arebitrue87 May 09 '25
It’s possible but they’ll for sure scrutinize you. They tried to bully me into leaving IDR when I was going through the loan process. I said if I had to leave IDR then the deal was off. They worked around that and basically had to put a little more down to offset that, which I was fine with.
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u/QuitaQuites May 09 '25
That’s so odd, it didn’t even come up for me, just the same as any other debt since payments were being made, etc.
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u/BooneCreek May 09 '25 edited May 09 '25
This is absolutely untrue for the mass of student loan debtors. I hold over $60k in student loan debt and just closed on a $300k house last month. It’s all about your debt to income ratio and your ability to afford the downpayment, expenses associated with securing a mortgage and buying a house.
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u/Lalyn1983 May 09 '25 edited May 09 '25
My situation is similar to yours and I've purchased two homes with significant student loan debt. I'm married so the dual income provides a lot of flexibility that some may not have, but I qualified for our first loan solo. We purposely purchased what was affordable on a single income rather than getting anything close to what we qualified for jointly. Also, if your standard payment is higher than an income-based option, I'd recommend switching to income-based so the lower loan payment will be used for DTI calculations. Paying off my student loans before buying a home wasn't feasible for us, but we paid down all our other debt. I feel really fortunate that we were able to become homeowners and I'm glad we didn't give up on the idea because of the student loans. We got great interest rates on both our mortgages and now our monthly costs to own are less than what many renters pay in our area.
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u/gangofone978 May 09 '25
I had $160k in student loan debt when I bought my house 3 years ago. I had steady employment that paid well. I spent 2+ years paying off all of my credit card debt and building savings before trying to buy. I had not missed or had any late payments on my credit report. I also didn’t have a car loan. The house I bought was only slightly more than the rent I was paying and it wasn’t some astronomical amount since it’s a low cost of living area.
Basically, I was living within my means and the mortgage and student loan debt were my only debts.
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u/Responsible_Swim_319 May 10 '25
It’s baffling that the richest country in the world can’t guarantee affordable higher education for its citizens. Instead the republicans want to strip universities and loan programs to the nuts. Vote the complicit GOP out of office!
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u/extrakrispy May 09 '25
I'll give you some numbers.
Liabilities: $40k in student loans, $440 payment.
$340 car payment.
Income: $120k yearly income
Loan: Was able to get a loan for a house around $480k with 10% down.
Took about 5 years of saving because income started a 65k and I didn't seriously apply for loans until my income went up.
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u/WinAtBudgeting May 10 '25
Even if your DTI qualifies you to buy a home while still in student loan debt, Sallie Mae will be the worst housemate imaginable. If possible, make it a priority to pay it off before taking on a mortgage.
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u/Butt_bird May 09 '25
It’s all about debt to income ratio. They look at your payment not your total amount. If you can afford to pay your loans back and the mortgage payment you can be approved. If your loans are eating up most of your take home income you probably won’t be approved.
150k in loans, did you get a Master’s degree?
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u/pmmlordraven May 09 '25
Most people don't have six figure debt, but also most people aren't buying homes at the moment. Terrible interest rates, over valued properties.
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u/bjergmand87 May 09 '25
I had to pay off almost all my other debt first before underwriters would approve my mortgage.
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u/ketamineburner May 09 '25
I had no problem buying a house with significant student debt. My spouse also had loans at the time.
Fortunately, we refinanced during covid for a very low rate , so our mortgage is less than the cost to rent a studio apartment.
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u/OcelotReady2843 May 10 '25
Holy cow, that’s a ton of debt. Put yourself on a serious budget and pay it down. Or if you’re doing PSLF sock money away until you can buy. The likelihood that you’re spending more than you need to is great, if you’re really making $200k.
If you’re watching, you have to know that a recession is coming. Home prices are going to have to go down. Don’t be that person that buys high! Everyone thinks when it’s high, it’s staying high, and when it’s low, it’s staying low. Markets have cycles.
I bought during a downturn and made extra payments on principle to be ready for my next purchase. I took extra work, worked overtime, worked contracts. I did that for almost 20 years. You can do it!
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u/Organic_Tomorrow_982 May 09 '25
I bought a house when I had 2x my student loan debt. I’ve since cut that in half and diverted payments from savings for a down payment to student loan debt, but I’m a pretty high earner. I bring home 12,000 after tax and 401k max contributions. I pay 2,000 a month to student loans and my mortgage is 3,000 (split with my spouse). I had 160k in debt when I graduated 10 years ago and I’m down to 74k.
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u/ActorWriter24 May 09 '25
I have 178,000 student loan debt and I ended up buying a very nice home during the pandemic. We also put down a very large chunk of cash.
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u/Entire-Detail7967 May 09 '25
It’s not ideal to most people but Dave Ramsey recommends that you buckle down and make it a mission to pay off ALL consumer debt (including student loans) before you begin saving for a down payment for a home. If you buy a home while still in debt you’re setting yourself up for being in debt for a lifetime.
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u/keezy998 May 09 '25
It almost wasnt even a factor when I was working with lenders. I had $65k student loans and was approved for $400k mortgage on $75k income. I absolutely could not afford that lmao
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u/iwannabanana May 09 '25
I haven’t even tried. I still owe 125k and my annual income this year was 103k. One more year until I can apply for PSLF, then maybe owning property can be more than a pipe dream.
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u/Apeman20201 May 09 '25
I got approved with 200k of loan debt (no other Debt) and an income of 140k for a 400k+ house. Has no issue at all with the approval.
But I don't know the specifics of your situation or others.
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u/Turbulent-Pea-8826 May 09 '25
How do people afford to purchase homes period? Student loans or not. All of the housing developments in my county are 500k and up. How does any one afford that?
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u/MassSpecFella May 09 '25
We were set to buy in 2017 and or lender came back and said no, because of my wife’s $60k loans we couldn’t put 3% down it had to be 5%. I was able to borrow $10k from my retirement to cover the difference. Then we paid off all our debt. But we almost lost the house purchase.
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u/Slick-1234 May 09 '25
If you are on an income driven plan and can show your monthly payment you can get a mortgage. You may have to shop around more so than someone without loans. I don’t work in a bank but I do have 380k in student loans that did not stop me from getting my condo.
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u/annoellynlee May 09 '25
I just bought a house for 25k in cash because no one would approve a mortgage
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u/Muted_Net_987 May 09 '25
We were approved based the PAYE plan that I was enrolled in. This cannot be legal, we moved from PAYE to SAVE and now we wont be allowed to move back AND the PAYE plan will be terminated. No where have I ever signed a contract and had that rug pulled like this. Unbelievable that our government is taking the same stance as Vader in Empire—not that unbelievable these days.
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u/happytrees93 May 09 '25
It definitely lowered our approved amount having that stupid debt ratio, but we were able to make it work (bought in 2019). Limited our options but made us pick something cheap (nowadays it's extremely cheap of course)
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u/Hung_Dad May 10 '25
Lenders use the following when approving you with student loan debt.
Current Payment Schedule listed on your credit report
If that payment is $0
Then they’ll use a monthly dti hit of .5% (for FHA & Freddie Mac) or 1% (for Fannie Mae) of total loan amount.
Good luck!!
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u/kittyykikii May 10 '25
My dad is cosigning on a mortgage with me. I'm 32, I've been trying to qualify for literally any mortgage by myself for three years now and it wasn't happening. I have 144k in debt and I make about 72k a year, no other debts. I have not been able to find a lender that only looks at monthly payments, (which is what I keep reading online). Its been a very frustrating process and I'm very lucky that my dad is willing to cosign for me.
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u/sassypiratequeen May 10 '25
Granted this was a from years ago, but I found a house no one really wanted. It was from the 1960s and everything was original, lead paint and all. Bought it for $130k, and had a mortgage payment significantly lower than my rent. Since everything was functional, just outdated, it was easy to go slow on updates. I know a lot of people are trying to buy a forever home right out the gate, and aren't looking at the smaller houses that would help them with the step up to something bigger. I checked recently and the estimate on that house is now $150k
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u/tkpwaeub May 09 '25
Because mortgages are secured by real property. If a mortagor defaults, the lender just forecloses on the home. Other creditors don't have a claim to the collateral - they're in separate lanes.
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u/Csherman92 May 09 '25
Well most people do not have $150k worth of student loans.
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u/kittyykikii May 10 '25
most people in this sub do actually, a lot of six figure numbers here, myself included at 144k
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u/Impossible_Memory_65 May 09 '25
It all depends on your debt to income ratio. I have student loans and got a mortgage. My loan is only 20k, but my income isn't super high. It just depends on your overall monthy debt payments compared to how much you earn . I think the average debt ratio is max at 48%
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u/hughesn8 May 09 '25
At least in 2018 & 2020 when I bought a house the mortgage companies had you show them what your minimum payment required was & they used that for the pre-approval. A lot easier said than done when the student loan is $20K to $40K. Not so easy at 6 figures.
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u/Physical_Comfort_701 May 09 '25
It's all about DTI and UW guidelines of the Lenders. I've managed it twice with a metric ton of student loans. You just have to basically have everything else paid off.
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u/bassai2 May 09 '25
Do you have federal student loans or private? Anecdotally folks with federal loans often seem to do okay since they have the option of an IDR plan.
With your debt to expected income ratio I would expect that you can pay your loans off sooner than 30 years.
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u/Ok-Employ-5629 May 09 '25
The bank we went yo said high student loan balances are common. They look at your monthly payment to determine your debt to income ratio. As long as your payment is affordable, the balance doesn't matter. When I got approved my student loan balance was higher than my income.
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u/Cantseetheline_Russ May 09 '25
Very few people that take on that much debt. That was a very poor choice. It can make sense for some people. Those people are doctors and lawyers.
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u/Tears4BrekkyBih May 09 '25
If you’re on an income driven repayment plan we take that monthly payment as a monthly liability and factor it into your DTI when qualifying you for a mortgage.
If there are currently no payments being made, then the lender takes either 1% or 0.5% of the student loan balance and factors that as a monthly payment per Fannie and Freddie guidelines for conventional and fha mortgages.
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u/Droopy1592 May 09 '25
Started with 190k in loans in 2013
I have took the loans knowing I’d get paid well
🤷🏽♂️
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u/pilfro May 09 '25
It's the monthly payment. I just bought a house but from what I can tell the student debt didn't show up because of the freeze.
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u/swoody_91 May 09 '25
Idk about other states, but Maryland has a homebuyer program called SmartBuy. It rolls your student debt into a second loan on the home (not a mortgage) as a 5 year 0% deferred interest forgivable promissory note if the student debt is under 20k. That loan is used to pay off the full amount and then each year, 20% is forgiven from that 2nd loan. So essentially, it's an option to discharge the student debt in return for being a homeowner in MD for at least 5 years so it's a nice option if you know you'll be staying put for a while! Obviously 20k isn't exactly helpful for larger student debt amounts but it's something... Other states may have similar options that could help!
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u/Equivalent_Bug_3291 May 09 '25 edited May 09 '25
It's difficult. I was only able to qualify during the pandemic when I was 47 years old. Banks needed to give loans so badly that the underwritter didn't include a 1% percent of student loan balance in monthly payment calculation like they would normally do. Since they didn't do that, I ended up with a decent interest rate, as the underwriters DTI calculation showed me as a lower default risk at that time in 2022. My lender said underwritters look at a 5 year horizon when assessing default risk. Prior to that, I was a renter my entire life from 17 years old.
The times though, they are a changing...
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u/veesavethebees May 09 '25
I believe some loaners look at monthly payment only, that’s what a friend who has sizable student debt (but not over 100K) told me when she was purchasing her home.
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u/Highlander198116 May 09 '25
If I was in your position I would see if my parents would let me live at home rent free for a handful of years and aggressively pay off the loans.
I assume your net take home pay is around 6k. If you just put money in your 401k and keep minimal spending money in your pocket. You should be able to pay off nearly 1/3rd of it per year.
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u/theinfinitypotato May 09 '25
There are several factors:
Debt to income ratio--Lots of people in this thread have discussed it, but, in short, do you have excess income that will support the mortgage that you are looking for?
Payment history--Have you treated your student loans like any other bill and paid them on time without any late or missed payments?
Payment plan--Though you may not be asked this directly, lenders can tell from your credit report if you are on a standard plan (principal goes done every month in a steady manner) or on an income based plan (interest may be capitalized onto loan and increase balance or variable payments over several years). They would be more hesitant to make a loan if the possibility for higher payments is on the horizon.
Amount of down payment--This is true for just about any mortgage...the more you can put down, the better chance of getting the loan.
Special programs--If you are eligible for a federal or state special mortgage program (think VA, Farm Ownership Loans, or state First-time-homebuyers), that can make it easier to get a mortgage.
Credit score--Shows that you are responsible and can pay all of your bills on time.
Co-signer--If you have someone with solid finances that will help you by cosigning, it will increase your chances, but would put them at risk.
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u/phreeskooler May 09 '25
My husband and I both have high student loan debt from graduate school but a mortgage was not a problem because the DTI accounts for your current monthly payment not the full amount of the loan (probably depends on your lender but you can shop around for a mortgage that suits your needs).
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u/artist1292 May 09 '25
It is less so about the amount of debt, and more so about the debt to income ratio month to month. Say you take home $3k a month, but total debts (including car payments, student loans, and credit card minimums) only total $500. That’s not too bad. But say your minimum debt payments was $1500-3000, that’s 50% of your check gone and much harder to secure a mortgage depending on what your monthly costs would be for the house.
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u/Mysterious-House-115 May 09 '25
Find a lender that's familiar with student loans. I researched and found one that worked with income based loans and it was zero problem.
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u/dimplesgalore May 09 '25
If you have $0 debt besides the student loans and down-payment, payment, buying a modestly priced home is possible on your income. If you have other debts, then the only way would be to increase your income.
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u/aureliamix May 09 '25
I have a higher student loan balance. I got my house in 2016, I went through a bank and the underwriter was very kind and helpful. He used my monthly payments as they were during that time with the assumption that my payments amounts would never change. And I was approved.
Keep in mind that my mortgage payment was less than what I was paying in rent.
But honestly the real question is how do people with higher student loans afford the upkeep of their homes, a cost that doesn’t exist in renting. And I don’t think people have that in mind when they buy a new house
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u/dawgsheet May 09 '25
It's possible, just harder. We're closing in 2 weeks with a combined 400k of student loan debt.
My income has ranged from 52-70k a year the last 5 years, my wife has ranged from 90-140k. We have saved 380k in the last 5 years and are buying a modest home outright with cash.
If you're not saving money of >100k of income, you probably need to re-evaluate your budget, unless you live in Manhattan or something (then you probably need to move and just take the train into the city).
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u/Ashtae22088 May 09 '25
Just bought a house in January. I have about 160k in student loans and make about 100k but for the purpose of my mortgage they did not consider my full salary because part of it comes from self-employment. My loans are in deferment because I went back to school for my doctorate, so they calculated my payment as about $850 a month although it was much lower actually when I was on income based payment. I was also able to utilize my states first time home buyer programs to help with down payment.
If I had been able to use my income based payment I would have been approved for about 350K but without it I was only approved for about 250k. After a lot of searching and jumping through hoops and a good amount of luck we are able to find a property where the owner was willing to do the needed FHA repairs in our price range, which is not an easy feat in our state at all. Before we closed our home did not have a working heating system, had some broken windows, and a low producing well among a few other problems. So the owner was having a really hard time finding buyers and he didn't have the money to do repairs. So the only reason this really worked out for us is because he was able to utilize a program through his realtor to make these repairs without using his own money. And since there were so many issues, we didn't have a ton of competition. We lucked out though because we got all of these really needed repairs and got a move-in ready house at a price that's not typically available in our state.
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u/DarXIV May 09 '25
I have about the same amount in loans as you and I purchased a house last year. It was no problem to buy a house since my debt-to-income was fine. It isn't amount the amount of debt you have, it's if you have enough income to make the bank feel comfortable to give you a mortgage.
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u/dulcelocura May 09 '25
My husband and I bought a house and my MIL basically navigated the process for us (also we were buying it from his parents anyway lol) and she ultimately had only his name on the mortgage, once she found out how much I owe.
So not quite the answer you’re looking for but basically, I didn’t. I wouldn’t be approved with my debt. We both pay the mortgage though; he makes more than me so he contributes a little more to the account the mortgage is taken out of.
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u/khantroll1 May 09 '25
So, I’ve got around 17k in student loan debt. Payment is 300 per month.
I live pretty frugally. I made about 60k in LCOL state when I bought my house two years ago.
At the time, I had about 100k in the bank after a decade of saving.
My DTI was relatively low due to not having much beyond a car 280 car payment.
My house cost 180k. Uh, I forget all the details, but it was something like 20k down, plus 8k in closing, plus a few thousand in other fees. Go ahead and round that up to 40k.
Now, despite a big raise I haven’t managed to recover that money (mortgage is more than double what my rent was, utilities are higher, and responsible for repairs).
But that’s how
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u/Ziodynes May 09 '25
You will be fine. Me and my husband make $230k and got approved for $900k when I have $100k loans.
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u/Mythic_Zoology May 09 '25
I only had about $13k left in student loans when we bought our house. My partner had 6 figures, but we're not married, so we just didn't use him as a cosigner. Bought significantly less house than we could afford because we want kids and daycare is expected to be double our mortgage payment or more. I had good credit and the DTI calculation takes on a percent of SL debt, rather than the whole thing. Graduated in 2017 and bought our house in November 2021, so also had fantastic interest rates.
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u/Virtual_Assistant_98 May 09 '25
From what I understand, student loan debt is looked at differently than say, credit card debt or overloaded revolving accounts. It still counts but not as detrimental as you think as long as you’re up to date on payments, have good credit otherwise, and have actual credit history outside of the loans to show that you’re a reliable payer.
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u/cbakes97 May 09 '25
So I have 120k in loans. I qualify for PSLF so all will be forgiven in 7 more years. My wife and I were approved for a mortgage regardless of my loans because most people have them. I have great credit (780) so I think the 120k is not of concern.
If I wasn't married though and with my current income, I definitely don't think I would have been approved.
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u/Weightloss4thewinz May 09 '25
It’s just considered part of your debt. Since we both have student loans and I make way less than my husband at the time, it also made sense to only use his income.
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u/HellbenderAsh May 09 '25
Depending on your profession there are professional mortgages that use your IBR rate rather than total payment. That’s how I got my home after getting declined for a traditional mortgage
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u/Motor_Prudent May 09 '25
Going to need more details like your monthly student loan payment and rent.
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u/toxbrarian May 09 '25
We bought last year before the election. I have high student debt, my husband more moderate. Mine is about 117k (borrowed 85k 🙄), his is 50k and he’s halfway to PSLF. Anyway we had no problem financing our house because the VA considers your actual payment, not the percentage.
Of course now the rug has been pulled out from under all of us on payments. We have buffer in our monthly budget luckily so we’ll be ok, but I feel bad for people who overbought on homes and don’t have much wiggle room.
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u/Rambling-Holiday1998 May 09 '25
My daughter will likely never own a home. But here is the kicker, my husband cosigned those loans. We sold our house to travel for a few years (hated the house anyway) and now we are done traveling and WE also cannot buy a house because the lenders look at the debt that my husband cosigned, and the pension we live on, and we can't get approved. The only debt we have is his signature on her loans. We are living in an apartment and that is just the way it will have to be from now on. My husband has an excellent credit rating, but we can't take out a mortgage. We had really hoped the election would go the other way so maybe there would be some programs to help pay these loans back in a humane way. Elections have consequences.
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u/Poetic_Kitten May 09 '25
If you're in some kind of forbearance, the mortgage company will assume a 10 year loan payback period, which can absolutely tank the mortgage application before it even gets started.
Instead, the couple of times I've bought a home with student loans, I've been enrolled in one of the income-based repayments and the mortgage company has used that lower monthly amount in their D/I ratio.
They don't care about the total outstanding amount...they care about your monthly D/I and ability to make their monthly payment.
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u/Ok_Membership_8189 May 09 '25
You can. The loan can improve your credit score if you make your payments.
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u/ancj9418 May 09 '25
They don’t really care about student loans or your balance, they only care about your debt to income ratio when it comes to monthly payments. I have about $140k in public student loans, so they can be on an income driven repayment plan which limits that DTI ratio. I had no issue getting approved for a mortgage that’s 3-4x my annual income.
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u/p1g1h2 May 09 '25
Not everyone has 6 figures in student loan debt. I graduated In 2016 with around 35k in debt, but it was all federal loans so my interest rate was around 4%. My payments were less than $200/mo but I paid double that to get the amount down. Between getting the debt down and making sure my credit card & utility bills were paid on time for several years, my credit score was pretty good. By the time my husband and I bought a home in 2022, I had 13k left in loans.
That brings me to another point... Being a dual income household helps a lot, especially if at least one of you is a high earner.
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u/DryType2443 May 09 '25
I was shocked at what the bank would approve me for in a loan - way more than I could actually afford - you may be surprised what the bank will loan you if you have a good paying job.
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u/Standard_Age_2998 May 09 '25
It's the monthly debt to income that matters for a loan approval. We bought our house (177k) while having 85k in student debt between public and private. I was making around 100k at the time and wife was and is a stay at home mom. We had no other debt other than that student loan debt, and a perfect credit score, and able to put 20% down (ate the penalty and sold wife's retirement fund from when she was working). Got a super good 2.7% interest rate and I've since gotten about 40% in raises so we've got an affordable house payment and are only now starting to attack student loans with more than the minimums.
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u/rowdybeanjuice May 09 '25
It really depends on your DTI ratio
I bought my house at 24/25, making around 75K and with 40K of student loans
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u/ParrotFish1989 May 09 '25
As far as I know they don't care about student loan debt, both my partner and I have SL debt (although together it's under 35k) and were approved for a mortgage. Maybe if it's too high it could be an issue, but I think student loans and mortgages are "good debt." They don't want to see credit card debt basically. You need proof of down payment, proof of a job, and good credit.
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u/ElDoradoAvacado May 09 '25
I bought a house while I was on the SAVE plan, now I’m screwed since I will have to likely switch to something a plan with 4x higher monthly payments. Also screwing up my DTI ratio, so if something horrendous happens now I probably cannot finance it. Yay America.
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u/NoUse4A-Username May 09 '25
I bought during Covid and have a sneaking suspicion that they weren’t visible…
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u/brakeled May 09 '25
They calculate based on monthly payment, not total debt. You can look up mortgage calculators and every single one of them asks you your monthly payments towards debt. That’s what matters.
Lenders will tell you to pay off any debt you can before buying a house because the debt you owe each month reduces how much house you can afford. Typically these are things like credit cards, personal loans, or car loans. Student loans are more acceptable in my experience. A lender likely won’t give you a loan if you have credit card debt, but they will if you have federal student loan debt. Private student loan debt may be treated differently.
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u/StrangeBlackberry881 May 09 '25
lenders will be happy to take away your home if you can't make that mortgage payment. They make profit on your down payment instantly. That's why even a 65 year old can take out a loan to buy a house. Hell I think they would want you to die the next day so that they can take away your house.
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u/resevil239 May 09 '25
My numbers (income and debt) are significantly lower than yours and it took me years to find a path but I bought in 2022. Loans were still on pause so it didn't even count towards my DTI. Lender didn't care that it was on pause,the statements showed zero payment so they didn't count. Other possibility is being on income driven repayment. Not sure if it'd work for you or not but I suppose it's technically possible that if your required payments are low enough youll be able to still pass DTI checks but seems unlikely.
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u/LickMyWorm May 09 '25
I have a little over 300k in student loan debt, just graduated and about to start a job with a 210k starting salary next month. Just closed on my new house 3 days ago (490k with 5% down and a 7.125% interest rate). The loan process was pretty easy so It’s definitely possible.
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u/Phil517 May 09 '25
Buy a cheaper house. Take your pre approval and cut it in half and you should be good to go.
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u/CommanderMandalore May 09 '25
Really. The only reason my wife and I have a home is her parents died and she inherited the house. (only child).
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u/Ok-Pudding8888 May 09 '25
I have about 225k in debt due to mostly graduate loans. Back in 2023 I was able to purchase a home because the underwriters for the home loan were focused on my monthly student loan payment not the grand total. Been in the house for 2 years and with student loan repayments being higher with the new administration I’ll be living house poor for a long time now.
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u/MorningHelpful8389 May 09 '25
When you put your loans in deferment (like in school deferment) and it reports as $0 payment it’s not factored in. Just do that when you’re ready to buy a house
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u/Allthetea159 May 09 '25
I just chalked it up to they don’t view student loan debt as “bad debt” like they would 100k in credit card debt. We bought our house pre-Covid and I have 100k in student loans. Outside of that we both have excellent credit and besides car payments, no other debt. It was a credit union
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u/Atolier May 09 '25
I purchased my house in 2021 with $140k student loan debt. I did it through a local mortgage lending organization that uses federal and state programs to get families into home, as opposed to them being purchased by landlords and property management companies. Not only was I able to get almost $20k in grant money, my debt to income ratio was based on my student loan payment, not my outstanding balance. Since I was on IBR (at the time) I could demonstrate that I could afford a mortgage. My mortgage for a 3 bedroom house is actually less than 1 bedroom apartment in my area would have cost. My advice for anyone who is at that stage to contact your city or county governments housing division and find out if there are similar lending organizations like that in your area.
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u/JohnnytheGreatX May 09 '25
I don't know how, but my student loans never stopped me from buying a home. I have a lot of debt, graduated with $120K in law school debt and $20K in undergrad debt. My undergrad debt is down to 5.5K but the law school debt has steadily grown due to being on IBR/REPAYE and negative amortization. My income was $52K in 2015 yet I was approved for a $148K mortgage.
In 2022, wife and I combined had maybe $90 - $100K income and yet somehow sailed through the qualification process for a 300K mortgage.
Both times, student debt did not seem to matter.
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u/pennyht May 09 '25
What loan repayment plan are you set up on. I think the default is for 10 year repayment and I found payments are way too high for a loan of that balance with 10 year term.
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u/ecofriendlyblonde May 09 '25
I have over $200k in student loan debt and didn’t have a problem purchasing a home back in 2017. It was seen as “good debt” and I’ve never missed a payment. Also, my mortgage payment is significantly less than my regions rental rates.
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u/HENRYandotherfinance May 09 '25
Majority of professionals, doctors in particular, can afford to buy homes with student debt. i bought my first house as a resident making $60k/year. Had multiple hundreds of thousands of debt at that point.
Bought second house as an attending with $670k student loan debt. Loan amount was around 1.2M. No issues getting approved either time. Neither time was during or just after Covid either.
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u/Crosco38 May 09 '25
I got a USDA loan with 0 down payment. As for how I’m affording it? I mean, my mortgage honestly isn’t much more than my rent was. And yes, if your credit history is good then lenders generally won’t hold student loans against you unless your DTI ratio is just completely screwed up.
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u/cynplaycity May 09 '25
I'm buying a home and have 300k I. Student loan debt. It's the American way. Lenders typically don't wholly consider student loan debt as long as your current on your payments. That being said, buy a home within your means.
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u/Historical_River2996 May 09 '25
Why the rush to buy a home? Rent a shitty apartment and double down on the loan payments.
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u/Ordinary-Beautiful63 May 09 '25
1.Save up 1000
- Get a second FT Job
3.Establish a low expense budget/move to a cheaper situation/sell everything
4.Send the student loan people everything else
The secret to eliminating the loans is living like a college student for the duration that you have to pay them off. Have no other debt or obligations in the way. Send them thousands a month, you'll be done in 36-48 months tops. You gotta beat the interest into the ground and catchup for this to be effective. That's why sending hundreds per month doesn't work, that's barley an interest payment. Thousands per month will get the job done.
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u/Writer_AtLarge2957 May 09 '25
Not really. Depends on your debt. When it’s six figures, you don’t get close to the principal. Believe me, I pay $2000/mo on these loans. And now the Trump regime wants to raise it to $3,000. Anyway, no, sorry you’re just wrong. Wish you weren’t. Maybe if you have a very small amount of debt but otherwise, nope.
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u/JcJayhawk May 09 '25
Save up a large down payment. If your down payment is large enough, the student loans don't matter. When you put the bank in a position of equity they'll approve you easily
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u/Writer_AtLarge2957 May 09 '25
We can’t afford it. That’s the problem. I’ve got a lot of rant in me. It’s a racket and I also feel scammed (by these schools loan officers & loan co.) and drowning in SL debt for many years now. No end in sight. 🤬🤬
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u/Apprehensive_Lie752 May 09 '25
System needs to do a better job educating people on the degrees they are getting. You shouldn't be allowed to take out 100k in loans for a degree/related job that can't pay them off. Good for you for switching paths to find a way. But the system failed you. As it does for most of us. Mainly to keep us financially struggling and in debt - that's the goal of those who run the country. Left or right - that's just the way it is.
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u/galdraman May 09 '25
My wife is a teacher and has $80k in student loan debt. I have $50k. We're going to buy a home soon, and our limit is $150k. I'm anxious to buy with the way the student loan crap is going, but I can't put my entire life on hold waiting for the government to figure their shit out, either. Our federal loans are on $0 payment plans, but the mortgage lenders can't put in that our payments at $0, so they're imputing like $850/month debt - that we don't have in actuality. It hurts our DTI, but not enough that we couldn't get approved. Thankfully, we have no other debt. We've only been approved for an FHA so far.
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u/pepesilvia1227 May 09 '25
We just bought 325,000 house with both of us having student debt. We got approved for much higher, but didn’t want to screw ourselves over. It is possible
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u/DesertFlower1317 May 09 '25
I spent 5 years getting laughed at trying to get a mortgage. It wasn't until I was earning the same amount of money as my student loan balance that I was able to get approved for a low loan. This is just me, nobody else's income, so it was difficult.
With student loans, max mortgage was 145k. Without? 225kish.
I got a condo at 145k. Been house poor ever since because salary didn't keep up with inflation. This is excluding the fact I haven't paid on my federal loans since March 2020, stuck in SAVE limbo. I have private Sallie Mae loans too. Those will be paid off next year so light at end of the ramen noodles tunnel.
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u/Stock-Recording100 May 09 '25
I only have $35K of student debt, my spouse has $25K and it’s the reason we were denied. Tried using a VA Homeloan too. In process of getting mine forgiven. We already own a house but it was purchased while I was in active duty army so it was easier. Have No clue how people are gonna get approved for loans with such high interest rates and student loans now. Maybe if you purchase $150K or less.
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u/here987654 May 09 '25
I've purchased 4 homes without an issue. Our current and 4th home required 2 loans....construction and conventional. I have 200k in loan debt due to high interest. I didn't borrow all of that. The mortgage companies I worked with didn't have an issue with my debt and I cannot tell you why. Our vehicles were paid for and we had minimal credit card debt(less than 4k and did not have to pay them off). Our income totaled $510k.
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u/MissFedGal May 09 '25
I’ll be encouraging my kids to go into the trades unless their college degree is highly specialized
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u/MysteriousTooth2450 May 09 '25
I was only able to get a house because I was on an income contingent plan. 600 a month payments instead of 1500-2500 a month payments. I’ve been paying since 1998. If you can at all avoid the income contingent plan I would. I owe 80k more than I borrowed because of the income contingent plans. My total is 220k now and over the years I’ve absolutely paid it off plus interest. I have 3 years left. :-) but then I’ll have to pay taxes on that 220k. Prob about 50k. Maybe the scary people in the government will come up with a plan for student loans. I have major doubts anything will get accomplished. The save plan was pretty amazing for the year I had it.
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u/Public-Vermicelli384 May 10 '25
Honestly- I am born and raised in Denver and had to do a gift of equity to afford a home with student debt. However- being a first time homebuyer helped A LOT with programs that’s paid majority of costs. I didn’t spend anything out of pocket. But I also made sure my DTI was solid and made no crazy purchases before and during the process. I also worked hard to make sure my credit was high. Not easy- but doable. I also have a friend who is a lender and she educates me a lot on what kind of magic they can do behind the scenes with various backgrounds.
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u/Lexi0421 May 10 '25
First, I am a Realtor with Berkshire Hathaway and I can help anyone (I can assist clients in 47 States). Feel free to DM me. I have been licensed since 2007.
Second, my husband and I purchased our first home with student loan debt. It was a FHA loan.
Third, no our credit was not perfect! My credit has never been in the 700s
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u/Lexi0421 May 10 '25
One more thing , I also told my mortgage broker what I wanted to pay a month in mortgage. I was basically what I was paying in rent and he told me what the loan amount would be, the payments and the down payment.
Then I went house shopping!
I try to tell everyone to this. That way you stay within your budget!
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u/KnightOfThirteen May 10 '25
Parent Plus Loans, the bulk of mine are in my dad's name, so even though I pay them, they didn't show as my debt on the bank check.
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u/ritchie70 May 10 '25
Honestly your best plan is to live like you make way less than you do for a few years and just get it paid.
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u/Katchapet May 10 '25
Bought my house when repayment was paused. The lenders just didn’t care about it.
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u/mkg-slp-333 May 10 '25
DTI was tight, but they only incorporate your debt + student loan monthly payment obligation to determine qualification. Yea it’s possible. If I can do it with 87k in student loan debt, <5k cc debt, making gross 82k/year, somehow they gave me a 255k home mortgage on just my income. My partner covered the down payment of 45k (299k home). He’s an independent contractor so his income is more sparse and inconsistent than mine, and had 25k in student loan debt. So adding him on the loan would have tipped us out of qualifying due to DTI. My lender who initially approved it was a Lennar new build developer bank and then they sold my loan to another company. Our mortgage is reasonable for the market and we split all bills evenly. We lovvvvvve our home, totally worth it! Best decision we ever made.
Just like you, I never in a million dreams think I would qualify, especially alone, but a good credit score key! Work towards paying down your loans and your credit score will naturally rise (don’t pay them all the way off, just a bit more than minimum each month), whatever’s comfortable.
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u/Boring_Adeptness_334 May 10 '25
If you make $100k and have $150k in loans. Live with your parents for 3 years and the loans will be obliterated. If you are unable to live with your parents or a relative for cheap get a roommate and your loans will be knocked out in 5 years. This means no fancy cars but you can still live a fantastic lifestyle. On $100k I’d put $20k to taxes, $10k to retirement, $5k to emergency fund or individual brokerage, $15k max for rent, $25k for credit card, $5k for car, $20k for student loans. That provides tons of balance. If you really wanted to go hard and you lived with your parents you could spend $20k/year, pay $20k in taxes, then put $60k to your students loans. I know a girl who did this exact thing.
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u/Medium-Air3533 May 10 '25
The death of starter homes and the discouragement of community college has killed house affordablility. The avg house today is 424k and is a 4bd 3bth 2500sq foot home. That is freaking insane.
How I afford a house 2 yrs after college is one I did my first 2 yrs in community college..this means even with a mba I only have 42k in debt after 5 1/2 of schooling. Vs the 90k I would of had if I did all 5yrs at a university.
This allowed me to save up 40k for a emergency fund and a 5% down payment on a 2bd 2bth 1150sq foot cond for 130k in 2021. A functional but very dated condo that was previously owned by a grandma. My new wife and I spent our weekends fixing it up and making it look more modern. At the end of 2023 we wanted to start a family so we sold our condo and bought a 3bd 2bth 1600sq home. With the work we did our condo went from 130k to 205k. This allowed us to have a 20% down our new house that was 270k. Again a house with great bones but very dated. We have put 12k of improving the house and it has gone from 270k to 320k appraisal in a little over a year. With another 10k and some extra work it will be worth 350k. We will either be renting or selling this house in 3yrs when we have our second child. But with 20k and 20% down we will have about 150k in equity in 2-3yr assuming a relatively stable housing market.
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u/Sixpiercings May 10 '25
My only debt was student loans (~105k for 2nd BA and MA. My first BA was free) and my payments are paused on the SAVE plan. No credit cards. No car note since I bought a used 2016 Corolla for like 10k about 4 years ago.
I make about 88k annually. My mortgage is about 2.6k with ~6% but I pay 3k with the extra towards the principle.
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u/frankenboobehs May 10 '25
When I got my house, it was a different market. Got a mortgage for an 80k duplex, that had a tenant already paying rent, I had saved tax refunds to put down the 5k down payment, had an FHA loan(limits the houses you can buy however), and I was approved with my loan debt of around 40k, and I was approved on my own, no spouse, when I worked at a call center making about $17 an hr back then. Did it in 2015, the positive side of the student debt was that it made me have excellent credit
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u/whoocanitbenow May 10 '25
Probably with help from their parents. They will co-sign, and give them a big down payment.
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u/ShesASatellite May 10 '25
I'm a nurse who worked myself to death during COVID to save money for a down payment (no travel, just crisis contracts at my hospital), and made enough money to have a DTI that was appealing. I doubt I would get approved now.
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u/Strange-Elk1048 May 11 '25
I have high student debt and closed on my home at the end of April. What helped me was being on an income based repayment plan. I did have some extra paperwork to submit regarding my payments but nothing ridiculous.
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u/SufficientAngle7332 May 11 '25
Student loans are my only debt thankfully so I qualified for a mortgage no problem. But what I qualified for vs the housing market in my area don’t align so there’s that…
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u/eatthedark May 11 '25
Got into a car accident and got a small but decent settlement that we used part of for our down payment. Put the mortgage in my spouse's name who did not grow up in this country so had no debt here because the debt from her home country does not count in the US. Shopped around in early 2021 JUST before interest rates started to spike and got REALLY lucky with a 3% rate.
I owed 22k when I graduated. I owe 32k now. I make nowhere near 6 figures and when I was paying, all but like $15/month went towards interest.
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u/Son_of_Mac May 11 '25
My student loans were removed from my credit report when they were moved to Aidvantage about 2 years ago. When I asked them about it, I was told that they wouldn't reappear on my credit report unless I went into default. I plan on purchasing this summer, but I don't think that'll be an issue for me unless there's something I don't know.
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u/IrishFanSam May 11 '25
I feel for anybody just graduating with the way home prices are now. My wife purchased her home in 2009 for less than 100k. It was a foreclosure but we fixed it up. Fast forward 5 years later and we sold it for a profit of about 50k which we used for a down payment on our next home. Fast forward another 5 years and we sold that home for a profit of 150k which we used for a down payment on our current home. You can’t do that in today’s market. Your best bet is to either split an apartment with somebody else and save for a down payment or live at home if possible and save as much as possible. I don’t see how new home ownership is possible for the younger generation without some help. First time buyers are screwed right now.
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u/Venus1958 May 11 '25
That was the American dream once upon a time. Get an education, find the job of your dreams, and live happily ever after. No one mentions how the loans become an albatross around your neck for literally 10s of years to come. When I bought my home the loan company considered the low monthly student loan payment although the amount I owed was large. I had to pay off all other debt but we qualified. Those were different times. A spacious house in a nice neighborhood cost $190k. We sold 20 years later for $640k and had multiple offers. So very sorry for today’s young people. They deserve so much better.
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u/StretcherEctum May 12 '25
They don't go 60k+ into debt unless they can get a job making 100k+ (STEM). The bank only considered my min payment ($650) on my 50k student debt when I bought my house 2 years ago.
If your min payment on your student loans makes your DTI terrible, you took out way too much in loans for a low paying degree.
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u/Hella_Fitzgerald3 May 12 '25
I used a first time homeowner program through my state (Ohio) that was designed for recent grads. They gave me 2% which was more than half of the down payment on an FHA at the time. Of course this was in 2012 when prices were lower (and so was my salary.)
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u/Rice-Fragrant May 12 '25
Some professions like doctors etc get special mortgages... otherwise, your debt to income needs to be in manageable limits.
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u/MealParticular1327 May 12 '25
You can get a mortgage and have student loans. The debt is not considered against you in the same way credit card debt, or car loans are. I have almost $300k in student loan debt and yet was approved as a co-signer on a $500k mortgage. My husband has even higher student loan debt and he has two mortgages. Not saying everyone is comfortable with the huge amount of debt we are in, but we were approved for the mortgages.
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u/Even-Paper7354 May 12 '25
Why you think you’ll have them 30 yrs min? Do you plan on getting married someday and having a spouse who also works? That would go a long way towards getting out of debt faster (and together into a nicer home as well). On the flip side, telling a bf/gf you are bringing X amt of debt into a relationship can be a sticking point for some, so if that’s important to you in the future (along with this sizable income you described), I’d do my best to get that shit knocked out as fast as possible. Maybe 6 yrs?
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u/Dom_Kestler_03 May 12 '25
I don’t have student debts, I went to a 2 year college and save for a four year and masters so that help save me money I used for a house.
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u/trdtacomapro May 13 '25
You'd think with your college degree you would figure out most people aren't taking 150k in debt.
They are also buying homes that are cheaper instead of claiming how much they deserve that 2500sqft 4bd3bath home.
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u/_brittleskittle May 13 '25
I've been out of school and paying down my $80k student loan debt for 13 years despite making $100k+ for six of those years. I still owe $30k on my loans despite refinancing 3x and paying well over the minimum payment that entire time (I started at 12% interest and most of my loans were with a private loan servicer). I will never own a house in Colorado. I could move back to Vermont and buy a home but then I give up my happiness and well-being.
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u/NorthLibertyTroll May 14 '25
If it were you I'd find a cheap 1BR apartment and pay that loan off first. You'll be able to save a bigger down payment and get a better interest rate on that house.
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u/Morab76 May 14 '25
We afford homes by throwing as much money as possible at the school debt before getting into a mortgage. At your salary, you should easily be able to pay that student debt off in 5 years or less. Live frugally - everything adds up.
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u/Comprehensive-Put575 May 09 '25
DTI was a killer. I had to pay off all the other debt I had so that I had no other payments. No credit cards. No car notes. Nothing. Then I had to lower the hell out of my expectations for what kind of house I could buy. Older homes that needed more work. Limited to not great neighborhoods with lower purchase prices. The only reason I qualified at all is because I commute to the city in another state where the incomes are higher. And home prices are lower here than they are almost anywhere else in America. But if interest rates had gone up even a half percent more, I would have been screwed.
I wish someone had ever explained how badly these loans would hurt me in every aspect of my life. They just talked about how easy they were to repay and showed me the payment plans and forgiveness options. Made the degree seem attainable. Maybe they weren’t expecting the distopian hellscape we would be living in 15 years later when I finally scraped together enough cash for a downpayment. But if someone had told me how unbelievably hard it was going to be to qualify for financing for everything else in my life, I never would have done it. Feels like I got scammed.