My girlfriend and I are thinking about taking a loan out to purchase our first home, we've already been approved at churchill mortgage for a single income loan around 150k we have around 8 grand to put down ourselves and are in the privileged position of having family members who want to assist us with money.

We're Curious what the best course of action is with this gifted money, probably around $10,000 to maximize the benefits and avoid doing anything illegal!

Thanks for any advice we could really use it!

With you being approved for a 150k loan and have 18k to put down I would recommend a Freddie Mac Home Possible over a FHA. The Home possible requires a down payment as low as 3%. With this being Freddie Mac once your Loan-to-Value reaches 80% you can drop the Mortgage insurance unlike FHA which holds the Mortgage insurance for the life of the loan. Also, in general Conventional will have slightly lower rates than FHA. With the additional Down payment this will boost your purchase power.

Best of Luck!