Income note: Base + overtime. Many firefighters work significant OT — 2-year history required.
Key challenge: Schedule (24-on, 48-off) means many firefighters work second jobs. Combined income can be counted with 2-year history.
Your advantage: VA loans available for many firefighters with military background. Good Neighbor Next Door program also applies. Strong union backing for housing programs.
On a $78,000 annual salary, your gross monthly income is $6,500. The safe housing threshold (28% front-end DTI) gives you a max monthly payment of $1,820. Dallas's median home payment is $3,844/month — leaving you $1,504/month over budget.
Renting in Dallas costs roughly $1,480/month for a 1BR. Buying at 36% DTI would require your maximum affordable price of $228,325 — below the city median.
Ask Zai with your actual salary, overtime, and credit score.
🏦 Ask Zai Free → 🔔 Set Alert 🔍 Decode DenialNot financial advice. Median salary data from BLS Occupational Employment Statistics. Mortgage calculations at 6.7%, 20% down, 30-year fixed. Actual qualification varies by lender, credit score, and existing debt.
Income tells you what you can carry. It does not tell you whether a lender will say yes — and that varies more than almost anyone realises.
And it is not simply who applies where: standardizing on state, loan amount, income, debt-to-income and loan-to-value, applicant mix explains only a 2.7× range in expected outcomes.
CFPB HMDA 2025, computed by FinanceRateCalc. Covers the highest-volume lenders published per market, not all lenders. Rates reflect applicant mix as well as lender practice — historical observations, not predictions. CC BY 4.0, not independently reproduced.