When we (I) bought our house 5 years ago my wife's credit was pretty bad and she was a full-time student, so her income addition was minimal. My credit was good enough to get the mortgage at a decent rate on my own. I never officially added her to the mortgage since there didn't seem to be any benefit to it. Fast forward to today and my credit is taking a beating because everything is in my name: the house, both cars, a motocrycle and a couple CC's. My score has gone from about a 720 to around 660 in just the last few years, and the interest rate hike my CC pushed off on me to beat Obama's deadline didn't help either. I just checked my wife's scores and they weren't good: 618, 629 and 659. But, one of the reasons her score was low because there wasn't a mortgage on it, or so it said. So I am wondering would it be beneficial to add her name to the mortgage even though her score isn't very good. Would it help either of our scores at all? My debt to income ratio would seemingly go down and her score might raise because she would have the good payment history of the mortgage added. Any advice out there? I know "officially" she owns the house with me because we are married; to a court what's mine is hers and vice versa, but the creditors seem to view it differently.
I'd advise against adding her to the house if she is on the mortgage but not on the note. This was another topic of discussion at our Jursidictionary meeting last night. It is rapidly becoming public knowledge that another wave of foreclosures is just around the corner and this one will be far bigger than the first one was. Another problem for the economy is that while the rate of new applications for unemployment is dropping there are few if any new jobs available anywhere so that isn't good either. Public debt is dropping rapidly meaning that people simply aren't buying much. This coming christmas season promises to be one of the worst in history as people cut their Xmas budgets deeply in order to pay off debt and save as much as possible. So while you may be in good shape right now with little worry about your income security it is possible that could change in the months and years ahead and you get forced into a foreclosure. If that should happen your wife's score could look pretty good to a new lender. If you put her on the note and a foreclosure happens then her scores will tank right along with yours. If she isn't on the mortgage then you should get her there however you can to protect her interests in case something unforseen happens to you but don't get her on the note as well. You should be working to improve her score to the greatest extent possible but don't make the mistake of paying off her old bills thinking that will increase her score because it won't. Let the old stuff drop off naturally or try to do some credit repair tactics to see if you can improve her score some. Also don't make the mistake of trying to open new lines of credit for her. That would drop her score even more for a while and in the meantime some of the old stuff will drop off leaving her right where she is now and deeper in debt. Building the deepest cash cushion possible should be your goal right now. You may need it desperately in the future. Work on getting good value for your investments and getting rid of any poorly performing investments you now have (if any). Stay away from any involvement with the stock markets. Things are looking rosy for the stock markets right now but there are no underlying values to be had in stocks and the probability for a huge crash in the near future is great. Stay with things like short term government bonds or CDs for now. If you have investment funds available then also look at gold and gold futures. Gold is at $1,040 right now and is sure to top out at $2,000 an ounce or better in the fairly near future. If you only have very small amounts to invest then look at Ally bank. They are actually Allied bank and one of the largest in the nation. They are paying almost 2% interest on savings accounts right now and you won't find better interest rates than that on small savings accounts anywhere else that I know of.
I doubt that you can just "add her to the mortgage." Most mortgages make you reapply and refinance to change the borrowers, either to add or remove. My husband and I own our house jointly, but the mortgage is just in my name.
You could add her to the deed,so if something happens her interest in the property is retained if something happened to you.
