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Our realtor recommended a mortgage company to us. As far as a new job, as long as its in the same field and you have a couple pay stubs, you should be able to purchase something. That's how it worked for us at least.

If you want to be approved for more, you might need a few pay statements showing the higher salary. I would check out local bank and credit union sites, and maybe bankrate.com to see what lenders look appealing.

As for schools, if you search for houses using realtor.com, when you click on a listing there's some tabs halfway down the page, and one says "Schools and Neighborhood". If you click, it should list all the schools within proximity and their great schools rating. You can also look up specific schools on greatschools.com

If your income is increasing a job change shouldn't be a big factor. What they will look at more is your line of credit & credit history. Sense this would be your first time buying a home you may need a cosigner, again depends on credit history.

A for schools your realtor should be able to help you or give you suggestion in advance so you can research what areas you want to live in that match your price point.

Hope that helps. Good luck with everything!

How exciting! in my experience our realtor's office worked in partner with a mortgage company/broker who did the pre approval and locked us into the best mortgage rate. Once we closed our mortgage was actually bought by a major bank but it didnt change anything on our part

1. I belong to a credit union and applied through them at the recommendation of my realtor. They are more likely to be more flexible on terms and offer more competitive interest rates. I would strongly recommend getting preapproved with a lender you plan on going with at the end. Preapproval and prequalification are two different things -- prequalification is just like a rubber stamp and isn't worth much. Preapproval is where the lender actually looks at all your documents as if you are applying for final close, and analyzes all your financials. Preapproval is preferable, but trust me, you don't want to go through preapproval and approval with two different lenders because they request a ton of paperwork multiple times, lose things, request updated paperwork, and it's a pain in the butt to do that twice.

You don't have to belong to a credit union to get a mortgage through them fyi.

2. For schools, we looked on our department of education's school report cards online. But it doesn't really matter much for us because we weren't pregnant when we bought so it will be 5+ years until LO is in school, and for our county, they are CONSTANTLY redrawing the lines so it is extremely annoying. To be honest, our school system as a whole is so so unless you move to another county about 2 hours away, which we weren't willing to do because of where we work. So we just have to deal with so-so schools. But your realtor should have recommendations on how to check schools.

Also agreed on having the conversation up front with your chosen lender/broker about your changing salary and whether they will take the new salary into consideration. They typically go off tax returns and may not be comfortable lending based on your new salary if it is a brand new job, but at the very least will want several paychecks of established salary there.

Good luck! It's stressful but worth it

We went with our credit union because they had great rates and a special no money down loan if you had excellent credit. It's a great idea to get preapproved first. The last thing you want to do is fall in love with a house you can't afford.

Good luck with your interview!!

We are using a lender that our realtor and friend recommended.

As for schools went by word of mouth and checked online how they did on the state wide tests each year, greatschools.com for reviews. I also heard one thing to do too is to check out if the school as a PTA website, if so, it shows that the parents are really involved which is always a plus. I would also ask the people at the new job what they think.

Good luck!