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Comment by jrockway | Hacker News Reader

This sounds pretty reasonable to me, actually. He has no history of being successful enough self-employed to support paying a mortgage. Give it some time, and I'm sure they'll loan him money.

Also keep in mind that this is a mortgage for an investment property, not a primary residence. So even more risky for the bank.

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I agree this is a shitty edge case but when switching from W2 to a 1099 is really just a semantic difference then switching from W2 to unemployed in the first few months.

BTW I'm pretty sure there's a way around this if he incorporated and made himself a W2 employee and paid himself a set salary but I'm not an expert.

Switching from W2 to 1099 is by no means a semantic difference. If it is, then it's probably illegal to be treated as an independent contractor.

I think he meant there's no difference between being unemployed and just starting as 1099, since there's basically no taxes paid to show you're making any income for a while.

It's also because he's trying to get a conforming mortgage. A bank willing to do a portfolio mortgage doesn't have to conform to Fannie Mae's requirements. Whether he'll find a bank willing to do one is another matter, especially on a loan that small.

Not completely in touch with mortgages across Europe, but any freelancer should know getting into freelancing is tough - not just for work, but also for mortgages, health insurance, etc

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