Mortgages for Sales Professionals

Sometimes. Fannie Mae standardly requires a two-year average for commission income, but if there’s a documented comp-structure change (promotion to senior territory, new accelerator, new shop with a different base), some lenders allow trailing-12-month qualifying instead. We document the change with an employer attestation letter, the new comp plan, and a YTD production statement. Where conventional doesn’t work, the Non-QM bank-statement program qualifies on 12 months of deposits with no two-year-average constraint.

Vested RSU income reported on your W-2 (Box 1) counts when supported by a two-year vesting history. Fannie Mae Selling Guide B3-3.1-09 permits future RSU income when the vesting schedule is documented and a prior-year sale history confirms the borrower actually receives and uses the value. Unvested RSUs don’t count toward income but may count toward reserves. Most lenders skip RSU income entirely; we don’t.

This is the most common sales-professional problem. Two paths: (1) Fannie Mae allows specific add-backs to Schedule C net profit — depreciation, depletion, amortization, business-use-of-home. We add those back. Often it’s enough. (2) If add-backs don’t close the gap (because the deductions are real cash deductions: marketing spend, lead-buying, brokerage fees), the Non-QM bank-statement program qualifies on 12 or 24 months of deposits as the income basis, ignoring the tax return.

Transition deals at the wirehouses (Merrill, Morgan Stanley, UBS, etc.) are usually structured as forgivable notes amortizing over 7–9 years. The note shows as a debt on your credit report; the forgiveness shows as income on your W-2. Mortgage timing matters: if you’re mid-note, the debt counts in DTI but the forgivable income is treated as bonus income. We’ve closed loans for advisors at every major wirehouse and know how each one’s comp structure flows into AUS.

Depends on the direction. If your new plan is higher (promotion, larger territory, better split), wait until the new plan is in force and you have 30 days of pay history under it — that documents the higher income. If your new plan is lower (territory change, brokerage move to lower-split shop), close before the change — your higher income still qualifies. The wrong sequence loses you tens of thousands of dollars in qualified loan amount. Talk to us before you sign the new plan.

Yes, with separate treatment. We document the base salary as continuous income (full credit), the commission as variable income (two-year average with current-year support), and bonuses as separate variable income (two-year average). All three stack into qualifying income when documented with pay stubs and the comp plan. Generalist lenders sometimes only use base. We use all three.

Some will. Most shouldn’t. Sales-cycle length is a feature of the industry, not a sign of instability. We document the listing inventory, the co-brokerage agreements, and the rolling-12-month commission history. The bank-statement program is often the cleanest path because it absorbs the lumpy-deposit pattern naturally. We’ve closed mortgages for yacht brokers at the Fort Lauderdale and Palm Beach yacht-broker firms; the path is well-defined.

Conventional Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (when two-year average works and add-backs hit the qualifying number), Non-QM bank-statement (the most common path for 1099 Realtors and yacht brokers), Non-QM 1099-only programs, Asset-Depletion (for high-earners between deals or with large portfolios), Jumbo (for purchase price over the conforming limit), and Trailing-12 commission programs from select Non-QM lenders. We pick the program after we read your comp plan, not before.