seattle-relo : There are many ways to skin this cat depending on your finances.

One way, if you qualify, is to buy it as a second home. You just have to qualify to cover the PITI under whatever Debt Ratio lenders are using (again depends on the lender, as low as 28/36 to 45% or maybe more). For 175K with 20% down at 6.5%, I’m guessing you need to be able to handle additional debt of about 1250 per month (TX prop tax is about 2.5%). For example if you make 150K thats another 10% on your debt ratio compared to your current situation.

If you need the income to meet qualification guidelines, you would likely either need a less than full-doc loan (e.g. stated income) or find a friend that wants to rent your new house (at least temporarily on paper).

For penciling this out, I would assume 25 or 30% down. Loan rates at 6.5-7% (You can probably get as low as 6.25 with full doc, some points, 30% down and good scores, but I like to be conservative). Property tax at 2.5%. Maintenance at 1% of property value per year (in addition to any obvious up-front maintenance/repairs).

There’s probably myriad other ways. Talk to a mortgage broker, who might be able to spell out a couple scenarios for your situation.