Home purchase while working on a PhD

[Dingas]

I am looking for insight as to how lenders will view the situation.  I have excellent credit and will recieve an assistantship, but I am unsure to what degree they will see me as a liability.  I would be very grateful for advice from anyone who has listed a graduate assistantship as income on a home loan application.

 

Just for background, my husband and I purchased our current home four years ago.  We will be moving so I can go to school, and we are trying to figure out what we can afford. 

 

Thanks! 

[Cosmojo]

my significant other and I looked into buying a house and talked to a lender- we decided not to purchase a home because we aren't sure how long we will be in this city yet- but the lender had no issue with my assistantship. It has a regular check just like any other job so they don't care. What I didn't realize though is that in calculating our debt/income ratio my student loans from undergrad which are in deferment are held against me. That obviously brought our monthly expenses in there eyes up a bit. Not sure how much you know about this but most lenders like your monthly debt/income below 40% so our proposed mortgage payment plus any car payments, student loans, and then if you have any alimony ect. They held ~1% of my total student loans against me in our monthly payments. 

 

Otherwise I had no surprises or issues, overall I think the lender liked that I was a PhD student, it sounds impressive and responsible typically. 

 

Hope that helps