For this weeks personal post, let’s talk a little bit about our upcoming move & how getting a mortgage as not one, but TWO freelancers looks (hint: it isn’t good).
As most of you know, I said goodbye to my W-2 income job in May and said hello to the 10-99 freelancing life to stay home with my baby. Let me first say that this was the best best decision I have ever made. Scary, yes. But in the past few months I have said yes to so many opportunities that I would’ve had to turn down, am able to see Hudson from sunrise to sundown every day and I can feel myself growing in so many ways that sitting at a desk didn’t allow me to do. That being said, we didn’t think we would be in the market for a new home. And we weren’t really.
But, my parents decided they wanted to buy property near us so they could visit Hudson more frequently, which eventually turned into us buying property together. So, when we found THE ONE, my dad applied for a mortgage to buy it, and we jumped on getting our own place sold. Luck would have it that we were in contract within a week on the market, BUT when we went to apply for a mortgage we were in for a rude awakening. My previous W2 income was considered nullified, and in order to have any freelance income considered you have to have a full two years worth of work, and they average your income for those two years as your salary. So, my income = $0. Yup, ZILCH. So, they ended up using Matt’s income alone for our mortgage application.
It’s pretty frustrating that the banks make it so much more complicated + difficult for entrepreneurs, and to be honest there were a few days where we were ripping our hair out going through paperwork just to find out what we could even secure as far as a mortgage goes. So other freelancers, consider yourselves warned. 🙂