I'm sure my situation is not relevant but we were snubbed by the VA with a Debt to Income ratio of 48%. Hubby's credit is impeccable, (770 according to the letter we received from our lender). Mine is fine, (702), I'm a housewife (don't work) and we have no children. Our DTI will be considerably lower once we sell our existing home, which we have maybe $100k in equity (who knows how much, really, but we're not underwater at all). We consistently pay off our credit cards in full each month and only have one active loan, a car loan for $20,000 @ 1.89%. We also have ~$100k in varied assets other than our current home. Some of those assets would be easy to convert to cash.
VA said we would be approved ONLY if we sold our townhouse first. They came to this conclusion less than a week before our purchase contract was up so we'd never be able to accommodate this in such a short timeframe.... definitely not without taking a significant hit. The late notice was not the fault of the VA (I'll get to that later), but it still put us in a bind trying to scramble for an alternative.
I say my situation is not relevant for two reasons. Primarily because our loan had to be underwritten by the VA itself. If you are getting a loan alone (or with your spouse) this step likely isn't required.
Secondly, our loan officer was unskilled at her job... #Understatement. She submitted our file to the VA 5 full weeks after we made an offer on the house; And that file was missing a loan analysis (and something else). So she didn't submit our completed file until about 3 days before our first extension agreement was set to expire. We were not made aware of this, and were told we were "at the mercy of the VA" or similar for two full weeks before we finally called the VA ourselves and discovered the truth. Once she actually submitted our file she suggested all of us call them a couple times a day to make sure "they get the picture." I would not be surprised at all if our VA Underwriter decided to decline our profile based on a poorly presented loan file and a notion that a LO's lacking of planning did not constitute an emergency for the VA
Hopefully your LO is skilled and has prepared your file properly.... Good Luck