Thinking Of Buying A Home With Your Significant Other? Ask These Crucial Questions First

Purchasing a home is both exciting and stressful. There are so many things to think about and decide upon before putting in an offer. When purchasing a house with your significant other, there are even more twists to consider before signing on the dotted line.

Before even looking at homes, you need to sit down with your partner and take a look at the debts of both parties. This helps to eliminate surprises later on in the buying process and lets you get an eye on the debt-to-income ratio which is a critical factor in figuring out the financing of a new home. As a general rule, lenders want to see your debt-to-income ratio at less than 36%.

Another important item to keep in mind when thinking of buying a house is how much money you have to spend. You’ll need to sit down with your significant other and create a very detailed budget together. Make sure to count all forms of income and include all debts, monthly payments, and expenditures for both of you. This will give you an idea of how much of a monthly payment you can afford and thus tell you what your price range is.

Not all couples share bank accounts so it’s also important to talk about how the mortgage payment will be paid and how much each of you will contribute. Most often, couples opt to pay half and half, though your situation may allow for a bit different arrangement if both parties can agree.

After figuring out the financial stuff, the negotiations between you and your partner really begin. Before even beginning to look at the market, the two of you must decide where you want to live. This means not only the city but the neighborhood. You’ll have to sit down together and hash out what each of you wants and make sure you can come to an amicable compromise.

Once you’ve got all the hard stuff figured out but before calling the realtors to browse homes for sale in the Twin Cities, there is one last very important item that needs to be discussed. Buying a house along with someone else means having to have the hard talk about what happens if you and your significant other split up. Sure, you may be able to still live in the same house as the other for a short time, but it certainly isn’t going to make for a cozy living situation in the long term. You and your partner need to have an honest talk about what will happen if you two break up. Maybe one partner makes enough money to take on the house on his or her own, leaving the other partner to move out. But what happens to all the money the other has already paid to purchase the house? What if neither party can keep the house financially? Make sure to have an answer to all of these questions before entering into a mortgage agreement together.