Hi everyone! Matt, your mortgage guy here, with some important information for you when you're buying a home.

When you start the buying process, you will need to gather some important documents. These documents will help your lender verify your income, assets, and employment history. This information is important to help determine how much money you can borrow and what your monthly payments will be. Here are some documents you will need to gather:

• Name
• Social Security number
• Contact information
• Date of birth
• Credit report (you can opt out of information sharing by calling this number or filling out this form)

The above items are all to verify who you are, set up your credit pull, and help prevent fraud.

• Most recent two years of living history (address and time spent there)
• Most recent two years of job history (company name, address, phone number, job title, and pay information)

The reason the lender needs two years of history for each of these is mainly consistency. They want to make sure you can keep a consistent job/income and don't move every three months (to prevent fraud). There are ways around the two-year history, but every situation is different.

• Types of employment:
  • W-2 jobs
    • Salary: Salary is the easiest one! As long as we can connect a two-year work history for any jobs, we can use your income after as little as one paycheck and an offer letter showing your new salary!
    • Hourly: Hourly is a little harder, if you get guaranteed 40+ hours per week, we can just use it nice and easy. But if your hours are variable, we need to see at least a year but usually require two full years of history to get an average income at that job.
    • Commission: Commission requires a full two years of income with few exceptions! Because your commission income can vary a lot from month to month, it's important to get a full 2 year average so the lender can see a stable history.
  • Self-employed:
    • All self-employed jobs require a minimum of 2 full years to qualify with very few exceptions. An important note here is the lender will look up your start date in the Secretary of state to make sure it's actually been two years. They then calculate your income off of your tax returns and how much you report/write off.
• Assets:

To back all of this up, you'll need to provide the following:

• Most recent 30 days of paystubs
• Most recent 60 days of bank statements
• Most recent two years of tax returns (personal and business if you're over 25% owner)
• Most recent two years of W-2s/K-1s
• Most recent mortgage statement on any owned properties
• Copy of your current, non-expired ID (driver's license is best)

Other documents: There may be other documents that are required, depending on your specific situation. For example, you may need to provide a settlement statement if you just sold a house, a divorce decree if you're divorced, or a note if you own a house free and clear.

Once your lender has reviewed your documents, they may ask you additional questions. It's always best to be prepared and to answer these questions honestly. By providing all of the necessary documentation early on, you can help to speed up the mortgage process and avoid any surprises down the road.

Thanks for listening! I hope this information was helpful. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me.

I look forward to helping you achieve your homeownership goals!