Yes, mortgage lenders will consider your students loans when evaluating your mortgage application. One of the factors in evaluating your qualification for the mortgage is your debt-to-income ratio.

Think about it – it’s not your income that’s important – the lender wants to know how many monthly obligations you have OTHER than your mortgage.

Your loans may be in deferment now, but they’re not staying in deferment forever. At some point, you have to make the monthly payment on those and on your mortgage, your real estate taxes, your insurance, etc. (Plus all of your other monthly expenses)

I’m guessing – since you’ve been in graduate school for a while – that your loan debt is not insubstantial – so your monthly payments may represent a pretty decent sized financial obligation. Your mortgage lender will certainly want to take a look at that.

Do student loans mean you won’t qualify? Of course not. If they did, few people in this country would be able to buy a place of their own until they’d been out of school for 10 or 15 years.

But will your student loan balances and anticipated monthly payments be considered? Of course they will. Just like any other major monthly obligation that will compete with the mortgage and homeowner costs for the money in your paycheck.

(Avoid the common mortgage lender’s suggestion to consolidate your student loans – it may make their numbers look nicer, but it’ll cost you an arm and a leg in extra loan payments.)

Good luck – I hope this helped.