[love_infection90]

...downpayment for a mortgage loan? me and my bf are expecting a baby in aug and his brother has offered to buy our mobile home from us for 20,000. we have 6000 credit card debt and 4000 left on our car. we know we are going to pay our car note off if we do decide to sale, what we do not know is if it would be wiser to pay off our credit card debt and bring our score up or to put the rest down as a down payment.

[Paul in San Diego]

That credit card debt and car loan are probably not what's taking your credit score down to 603. So, paying them off won't help you much (and might actually hurt you, depending on how they caculate your FICO scores).

The credit card debt, however, is probably costing you the most in lost revenue, rather than the car loan. With a mature car loan, more and more of the payment goes to the principal each month (you pay less interest). But, with credit cards, you're probably paying 18-20% APR interest and most of whatever payment you make is mostly interest. So, if you pay off anything, pay off the credit cards.

However, any debt you have will count against you as far as your debt-to-income ratio. So, if you're going to buy another place with the additional cash from the mobile home sale, you would be better off paying off the car loan, too, before making another home purchase.

[Real Estate Guy]

I would pay off the credit card. The cc are costing you MORE in interest. Yes, the car loan has a higher payment, but the cc are more expense.

I would put the 14,000 in savings for emergencies ONLY. Save this no matter what and continue to put at least 10% of your gross pay into savings. NO MATTER WHAT. Get the money taken out of your paycheck directly - just like taxes. I would also make sure that this money is in your name only.

I would try for a 100% loan on a place. Use FHA and get the seller to pay the closing costs and the downpayment using the Genesis Foundation program (your lender should know about this). The seller can pay all your costs/downpayment.

HOWEVER!!!!! Do not spend more then 25% MAX for your total mortgage payment. If you can spend less, like 20%, that's better.

Buy a house you can afford and put money into savings each month. Yes, the baby will be expensive, but you need to build up your savings!!! You can find 100 reason to not save, but it has to be done.

[NWCguy]

You need to pay off your CC debt. You are paying about 20% on this and it will continue to eat away your credit score.

Best rule of thumb is to pay off the debt with the highest interest rate first. Once you do this, don't get the debt back. Keep making the full monthly payments.