La Grange Park, IL · Member since 2018 · 18 posts · 7 votes
For all of you who are married (or soon to be), how are you handling your finances with your spouse? Keep totally separate accounts, merge everything, or make a stand-alone new joint account? My original thought was to merge everything for convenience, but will I be shooting-myself-in-the-foot by having the banks see us as ONE entity, and therefore limit the total number of loans that I can obtain with conventional financing?
A previous podcast had emphasized that huge advantage of keeping properties under only one spouse, rather than both, which allows up to 5 loans per person (instead of 5 total jointly). I'm unclear if that's a decision that can be controlled at the time of purchase, or is dictated by your financial account set-up with the bank.
How do you and your spouse handle your accounts, and how has it impacted your financing options?
Investor · Champaign, IL · Member since 2018 · 160 posts · 114 votes
8y
@Christopher Boyle - We have our things merged and it does not affect us. They only looked at my supporting financial documents and only ran my credit. Of course, we have a joint return so they saw my wife from that aspect only.
The only loan that I had to have my wife sign that she was not apart of was the home equity line of credit against our primary residence. That's because it was also her primary residence and she had to understand that the bank could take the house if I (we) did not pay the line of credit back.
Real Estate Agent · Indianapolis, IN · Member since 2018 · 41 posts · 23 votes
8y
@Christopher Boyle hmmm interesting points. Actually wasn’t quite sure what direction you were taking this conversation from the topic. Lol. When I was married I financed solely due to the fact my ex income was 1099 and her first year. When they verified income as Instill owned my first home, they required 6 month reserve for each home, the bank account was treated as mine with both our names on it. My 401k which was counted toward reserves was mine only and not hers. That’s to say things that overlap I’m not sure they would have a problem counting both ways like bank accounts, so you kinda get an advantage. My experience, eager to see others take.