I'm thinking of getting a new job here shortly and I'm probably expecting to move my income up to around 60-70k. We just wanted to move first because my wife and I currently drive (carpool) 45 minutes to work. Is a conventional loan something I should look into instead? Or can I refinance into that later?

They did offer the ability to refinance on their dime as long as its within 3 years so that would fit my time line for a new job and my wife's credit score should recover as well. Do conventional loans have MIP?

That's always a concern haha, financially my wife and I are alright with the payment I just don't want to get ripped off. We're lucky month to month we really only pay on rent and car expenses along with food, I'd just like to make sure we get this as low as possible so we can enjoy life more.

The loan term is over 30 years, I'm working right now with the agent to find the interest rate so hopefully I'll be able to let you guys know here shortly.

Would it be best to shop this around before finding a house or is the process short enough with other lenders that I can do this after finding one?

I'm definitely not banking on that haha! I actually just paid off my private loans recently so my federal ones don't scare me too much any other time they just look scary on my credit reports.

My wife and I are just starting but in our area they won't show you a house until you have a prequalified rate. I was wondering though if I get a house that I want to put an offer on am I still able to shop around with other lenders or am I stuck with this one until it runs out?

I'm going to send an email to see what the rate is that they have gotten for me, this is mainly why I made the post. I'm not exactly sure of all the workings with mortgage loans but I still feel like a fixed rate loan they should be able to give me an exact amount. For example if I borrow exactly 100k then I should pay an exact amount on the loan principle, not a range.

I was actually going to look up a formula to calculate it when I got the chance, I just wanted to find one that wasn't a marketing tool. I was just given the monthly payment at the highest loan amount I can take out.

For the first 12 months they cover 1% of the interest and my payment is around 500-600 but after this it will go to around 600-700.

I had to go back to the cheat sheet I wrote down while on the phone haha! They hadn't given me an actual interest rate to go off of. When we talked about the price per month my agent had just said about the cost being 600-700 a month on the loan itself.

The other thing is I'm qualified for the loan forgiveness to erase up to 20k in my student loans. Financially it won't effect me either way since the payments are only 50 a month but will it adjust my rates enough to wait? My wife is in the same boat however her credit score is too low to be counted as a source of income.