If My Spouse Makes More Than Me, Should I Still Be on the Loan?

Question:

My wife makes three times what I do. Home value is about two times my wife’s salary. We have no mortgage, and we have no debt other than the credit cards that are paid before accumulating interest. Her credit score is 750 and mine is 790. I am self-employed and she is W2. As I understand it, any debt on our home if we owned it jointly, would be borne by both of us.

Is there any point to me being on the paperwork?

Answer:

There are pros, cons, and neutrals reasons to being on the loan.
Advantages:

There is some benefit being on the loan and having another trade line on your credit, which may help eligibility for future loans. This benefit only matters in rarer situations though.

Neutrals:

Even though your FICO score is better than your wife’s, your lender would still use her credit score for qualifying purposes. – Even if you make less money, it doesn’t hurt the file.

Disadvantages:

My first thought is you might not want to be on the loan if you planned to buy a property independently (maybe a second home or vacation home) and didn’t want to have that primary residence’s monthly payment count as debt making it more difficult to qualify for another mortgage.
– Less likely, but IF you got in trouble financially and had to foreclose or short sell the property, your credit would be affected being on the loan.

Given what I know (and some assumptions I’m filling in), I’d suggest not being on the loan if you can qualify with her alone.

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