<prompt> Human: I live in Alabama and from what I can tell, cost of living is very cheap here compared to the rest of the US. I have a pretty good credit score 755 but my wife has quite a lower one 640. When I applied for a pre-approval for a loan I applied with both of our names and incomes thinking that was the correct thing to do. I found out that the loan and interest rate is based off of whichever one of us has the lower score, they take the middle one. So my credit doesnt even help us.Should I apply by myself? Will the better credit score outweigh the drop in yearly income? We received a 4.7 interest rate offer on a 30 year fixed. That seemed higher than what I was expecting.We try to live below our means, so we are looking for houses that I could afford by myself so that when my wife chooses to stop working to have kids it wont be a big hit. I make 55k and she makes 32k and we are looking for a house around 150k.What are the pros and cons of applying for the loan just by myself?  <response>: Mortgage loan processor here.Presuming the following:You have the 20 down paymentYou have steady two year employment historyThe average of your last two years gross income is 55,000You can easily afford a 150,000 Conventional 30 year Fixed Rate mortgage. Interest rates are higher than they were last year, but still at historic lows. Anything under 7 is a bargain compared to what your parents were paying.Alabama is NOT a community property state, so you can purchase the house without your wife being on the loan, and you do not have to count her debts. IMPORTANT to look at are YOUR debts. Estimating 100 for HOI and 2 property value in taxes, your PITI payment will be 998.30 at a top DTI of 21. Add up the minimum payments of all YOUR personal credit cards, the car payments in your name, any and all regular monthly payments you make excluding utilities. Add that sum to 998.30 and then divide by 4,583. Exclude counting any debt that is only in your wifes name. Its worth it to have your credit pulled to get a list of your liabilities.If that number is less than 0.45, youll qualify for a mortgage. All you need is the 20 down payment, which for a 150,000 home would be 25,000.PROS of including your wife:You can add her incomeIt would improve your wifes credit score after the purchase closesCONS of including your wife:You must add her debtsYou will not get as good an interest rateFICO scores are 20 point brackets that set the pricing you will get. It peaks at 740. Any credit score over that is just padding so you can make mistakes and still achieve best possible pricing. With your size mortgage, 125,000, interest rate doesnt mean much. The difference between 4.5 and 5 is 37.67 a month. Basically a dollar a day. So dont get too worked up over every fraction of a percent.Even if your wife is not on the mortgage, she can still be on title, so you can show her a paper that has her name on the address. And that paper would be valid. 