First time home buyers w/o 2 year work history

elaborate on your situation, guest. what were you doing in the beginning portion of those 2 years that was not employment? were you just sitting around, were you in school, were you raising a child, were you simply unemployed? that will be key, honestly, in trying to assess just what might be available to you.

Well, here's what's happened since my last post--We applied for pre-approval (for an FHA loan) from a friend of a friend who happens to work as a loan officer at an out-of-state bank. We submitted all of our paperwork as well as that of our cosigner. 3 weeks later we find out that we shouldn't have even used that loan officer since FHA regulations require the lender to be in-state or an adjacent state from the location of the property. Now our application has to be transferred to an in-state branch of the bank for processing. My question is this: Should we even bother continuing with the bank application? Or is it time for us to look towards other lenders? Also, is there anything wrong with having an ongoing application with a bank as well as a mortgage broker? I just don't want to be penalized in any way. Obviously, part of it also is the fact that we've already sent in all of our paperwork and don't want all that effort to go for naught. (We also don't want to insult our friends who referred this guy at the bank...although, seriously, it took 3 weeks for him to know this information? He should have known and not wasted our time!) Let me know what you guys think.

stick it out, but to answer the question about having 2 applications going at once - well, it's not the optimal situation, but if you feel the need, you can do that.

there are a lot of lenders who allow loan officers to do out of state loans and some who do not. the company i used to be with said i had to ship out my out of state loans, but i did a virginia fha loan without issue (and i am in connecticut)...so his error may not have been completely his own. it could have been misinformation by his company. we will probably never know the full details of the error, of course.

Hello me and my husband want to buy a home our credit sucks but we have a cosigner with a credit score of 650 with good employment history. Would she be able to co sign for us for a FHA loan? Also my husband has VA loan certificate could we use co signer with VA?His credit score is 534 with judgments. my credit score is 588 i just started a new job but i do have past work history so will i be able to get a FHA loan or VA with my co signer.

So after we had been told to come back after we had 2 years work history by 3 separate lenders, we had resigned ourselves to waiting another year before trying to buy a house. About 2 weeks later, we were contacted by a broker who said that he could help. We sent him all of our paperwork and we were able to obtain a pre-approval if we only used my husband's W-2 income and therefore only put the loan in his name. We found a house we wanted to buy and had our offer accepted. We applied for a hard approval at the end of August. We were scheduled to close on September 30th. Here we are on October 2 still in underwriting and awaiting a clear to close. Supposedly we were approved, according to the underwriter on Sept 25th, but then they asked me to send in some of my information (LLC Articles of Org and stock portfolio). They still refuse to use my income because I have less than 2 years work history and only receive 1099 income, but they want to put me on the loan now. Our closing was rescheduled to yesterday, Oct 1, but was cancelled as our file was still in underwriting.

My loan officer/broker tells me that this type of ridiculous delay is becoming more common these days, but I worry that it is because they have changed their mind about approving us. They are only going off of my 2008 taxes where I had worked for 4 months and took a lot of tax deductions because we were just starting out with our LLC. Do you think I am being paranoid or do I have just cause to worry as much as I am?

A large part of me wishes that we had just waited until we had the 2-year work history to avoid this mess...

it is absolutely true that closings these days are delayed, and ridiculous is a valid way to put it, too. it's not that they change their minds, but that guidelines have changed over the months, and everything is looked at much more strictly.
i don't blame you for paranoia, if that's what it is; but keep the faith and just do what they ask and you should be okay (at least it sure seems that way).

as for 2 years out...who knows what we'll be looking at by then?

oh yeah...keep pushing and insisting on prompt closing.

That is absolutely true

It is not that the lenders do nto want to process the loan, it is just that there are new laws and also they are being cautious

Hopefully they will make a decision soon. We have already had 5 extensions because they couldn't meet our initial loan commitment date on Sept 3. Our most recent extension is to Oct 7. We worry that the sellers will stop agreeing to the extensions and just cancel our contract because everything is taking so long. I feel really bad for them...they've already moved out of the house and if we don't end up getting approved, I will feel bad that we've wasted their time...not to mention the time and money we've wasted.

It makes me feel better to know that we are not the only ones going through this headache, but I sure wish that we were lucky enough to be left out. Our broker has gone to his manager and he has supposedly contacted someone higher up at the bank. Unfortunately that doesn't seem to be doing much...do you know how we could get more done? It just seems to me that the lenders and underwriters don't care that we have deadlines that they are blowing right past.

i also hav 1 year history and i want t get fha lan an i qualify for this ?

FHA requires minimum of 2 years wok history and also a minimum of 620 credit score

newbie i have to say it sure does seem that nobody cares about deadlines. we see it all the way down the road, from loan origination to closing. yes, there are lots of demands made on the processors, underwriters and closers, but there does, indeed, seem to be a lack of concern over the meeting of due dates. it's definitely frustrating.

to stev: what is your prior history? that will have a great impact on whether or not you ought to move forward.

Just updating on my previous post---
The past few weeks have been crazy. After we were verbally approved, we were then denied after the underwriter decided to add me to the loan because the underwriter didn't expect me to have any debt (I have a car loan). Then the underwriter decided to approve us if I could prove that the car was paid by my LLC (which it isn't) so she then denied us again. It has been so stressful being told we were approved only to have the decision changed. Therefore, last week, we decided to ask if increasing our down payment would help. After resubmitting the new information to the underwriter, we were approved. I went to the loan officer last week and actually saw the loan approval letter. The underwriter just wanted bank statements to show that we had enough for the new down payment. Now we are once again waiting for the clear to close. We don't have a closing date set because our attorney has advised us to wait until we have a clear to close since we have previously scheduled, rescheduled, and then had it cancelled on us. Due to all of the insanity, my husband and I are even hesitant to buy furniture or continue packing. We haven't even told our family and friends because we don't want to have to retract our statement if we end up getting denied at the last minute again. At this point, do we still need to worry? We are approved and will be getting the house, right?

All of the bank statements were submitted on Thursday afternoon. On Friday, my broker said he received notification that it would take 24-48 hrs until we heard anything. He said that we would probably get a clear to close by Tuesday afternoon. If he gets the clear to close by then, how long will it take to actually close?

I wish that I could just be happy and stop worrying, but it has been such a frustrating few months that I am constantly worrying that things are going to go wrong again. Do I still need to worry or do you think we're in the clear?

i hate to say it, but you already know it, so i guess it won't be too surprising: don't count your chickens before they're hatched.

that 24-48 hour scenario sounds about right, and if you've given them what they've asked for, then you ought to be in the clear (not meant as a play on words here). please also don't think that a clear to close on tuesday means you close on wednesday. give them another 48 hours or more to get their paperwork together.

let me say this, and don't let it upset you further: the underwriter has no business making a decision that a borrower should or should not be on a loan. lenders cannot make that choice. the only way a borrower can be added or deleted is by the borrowers' choice. it's not a taboo to suggest that a file might be strengthened by the addition, as i hope was the case with you. you'd think that with underwriters being as scared as they are in this market that they'd think thrice before making rash decisions such as this. ah well...we don't know the vagaries of decision-making anymore in 2009, do we?

newbie, i hope you're okay here - it's sounding like that from what you've described. there's only so much stress a body or mind can take after all.

Hi George,

I'm doing ok, considering the emotional ups and downs. We still haven't gotten the clear to close so for now, I'm still on the edge of my seat waiting for progress. It's just so disappointing that these type of delays are still happening...it's just too reminiscent of the previous approved-denied cycle. I'm trying to keep my head up, but in the back of my mind is so much doubt and fear. It doesn't help that the friends and family that do know about our house purchase constantly tell me how ridiculous our situation is as if I haven't already thought all of the very same thoughts.

Regarding my addition to the loan--the underwriter said she would approve us IF I was added to the loan, only counting my miniscule 2008 adjusted gross income (only worked for a few months and took a lot of deductions). She absolutely refused to consider my 2009 earnings which are much more substantial. Then she saw my car payment which is more than the monthly income she calculated for me so I quickly went from an asset to a liability and she denied us. It was crazy.

Anyway, thank you so much George for your advice here. I will let you know when things move forward, once they finally do.

So we've once again hit a rough patch---the underwriter suddenly doesn't think the house is worth the appraised value (and at this bank, apparently the underwriter IS the appraisal department as well). We just can't seem to get a break with this house. What options do we have? We've already invested so much time into this house...and we're just so close...but part of us is thinking of just calling it quits if we can't get around this underwriter. At this point, I once again wish we had just waited until we had the two year work history...