Two mortgages better than one for first home?

[spup345]

What is the name of your state? NY
=====
I am self-employed for 1 year and my wife is full-time employed (for many years). We have excellent credit, very little debt (just about 10k in student loans for her), and can do 20% down. However, we are looking to get a total of around $500k in mortgage money.

My question is:
-Are we better off getting two mortgages. One for maybe around 325k under my wife's name at the best full-doc rate, and the 2nd for around 175k using my higher stated income or no ratio loan interest rate (Thus avoiding the jumbo mortgage rates)?
-Is it extremely rare or not-so-rare to get 2 loans for a new house (first-time buyers), one for each spouse? Would we probably have to use two banks, or can it all be done through one?

Any tips/suggestions/hints would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

[HomeGuru]

Originally Posted by spup345

What is the name of your state? NY
=====
I am self-employed for 1 year and my wife is full-time employed (for many years). We have excellent credit, very little debt (just about 10k in student loans for her), and can do 20% down. However, we are looking to get a total of around $500k in mortgage money.

My question is:
-Are we better off getting two mortgages. One for maybe around 325k under my wife's name at the best full-doc rate, and the 2nd for around 175k using my higher stated income or no ratio loan interest rate (Thus avoiding the jumbo mortgage rates)?
-Is it extremely rare or not-so-rare to get 2 loans for a new house (first-time buyers), one for each spouse? Would we probably have to use two banks, or can it all be done through one?

Any tips/suggestions/hints would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

**A: you need to be talking to a local mortgage broker.

[nanomug]

a mortgage broker can give you all the options. typically since the mortgages will be on the same property both parties will be on both mortgages. however, this can vary. when you speak to a broker, get all the details of various loans and compare the costs, interests over 1 year, 3 years, 5 years, 10 years or whatever you think you might want to move or incur a life change such as children or retirment. Knowing that we will be in our home a max of four more years we refinanced with a 5 year fixed, then variable which was a cheaper loan than a 30 year fixed. I compared the various options side by side and was able to tell what made sence for our circumstances. Paying points that had a break even point of 4 years didn't make sense to me, but points with a break even of 2 years did.