No matter what experts you recruit during the home-buying process, you're still your own best advocate. So when I told my mortgage lender that I wanted a total backup plan if the mortgage didn't get underwritten, he might have thought I was a little crazy, but I pushed anyway. After some cajoling, he went along with it, creating a backup application that relied solely on my wife's steady W-2 income to get the mortgage approved.
I'm a freelancer and independent contractor so I knew that underwriting with my income wasn't a guarantee, despite a pre-approval letter. While that might sound like a special circumstance, one in five jobs in the American workforce are now contractor positions , so it's increasingly common.
Securing a mortgage and buying a house for the first time is a daunting proposition, but regardless of your particular circumstances, having a fallback plan is essential. Don't let anyone persuade you otherwise.
In the end, my worst case scenario did end up coming to pass, with a change in my business's structure in the past two years invalidating my income, despite having the same client base and annual income. But instead of it being a life-changing ordeal, it delayed the sale by less than a week.
So swallow that feeling of being too pushy. When dealing with something as massive and life-changing as buying a house, you can't do too much to ensure you're set up for success.
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