My husband and l are looking to buy a home, the price listed is $347,000. We have the money to pay cash for it but were wondering if we should finance $100k for a 15 year loan and take the $30,000 hit with the interest rate our lender quoted us? Our credit needs improvement and we were thinking that this would help improve it. Also we were wondering what we should offer for the house, it has been on the market for over a year and there are a ton of other homes in the area for sale. Would making an offer of $300,000 be to low?
it is a new home built in 2007, never lived in. It is in a gated community and only a dozen or so of the houses actually sold because they built to many.

$300 would not be too low.. Is it bank owned? Is is occupied? Is there a mortgage on it? Is it listed? Have there been any offers on it? There is a lot of flexibility, but you should know the to these things before you can determine the best price to offer. Good luck.

47K below sking price is pretty low. You need to see what other similar homes have sold for in the last month. It does not matter how many are for sale, the thing that matters is how much the ones that sold have sold for. If it is closer to 300K, offer that in cash and use your home equity to build your credit after the fact. Sellers love to deal in cash with the banks the way they are today.

Check to see what other homes in the area are selling for (if they're selling) and pay all of it without a loan. Get your credit rating up by making jewelry purchases and putting them on a loan and get yourself a secured credit card or two. That way you have less debt and are less of a liability.

You will get a much better price on the home if u offer all cash. (depending on ur local market anywhere from 3-15% ( $10,000 to 50,000)) So, add that to the $30,000 u will pay in interest for the total additional cost. Plus add $3000+ for additional closing costs associated with the loan.

Having a mortgage does not always improve ur credit score. If u pay all ur Other bills on time & work to remove any bad items on ur report, in a few years (2 - 4 years) ur credit will improve greatly.