Pregnancy and the Mortgage Application, Time to Clarify Some Miss-Information in the rain

I agree with Linda, #51 above, I have a pregnant single mother buyer on hold until she delivers.  It's even difficult to get her to showings, basically, I'm scared to transport her at 8 mos pregnant.  We are looking at listings and creating a list. I hope things go well for her and she resumes her plans to buy. In the meantime, I practice patience.

Rob, as Shakespeare said "Much 'ado about nothing". Income has to be likely to continue, and in the past we could get by with a letter from the employer, saying job would be available and a letter from the borrower saying they intended to return to work.

There's been a lot of talk about guidelines relaxing after we get through this.

Fannie Mae's CEO Lauds 'New Realism' of Better Underwriting
Fannie Mae is building the "strongest book of business we've seen in the last
decade," according to the GSE's president and CEO, Michael Williams. 

This is our market and we'll all succeed by having business partnerships between Realtors and Lenders based on knowledge and
experience, not just rates!

John N., regarding thost questions about birth control and menopause, I was actually asked about my birth control method when we applied for our first mortgage way back when dinosaurs roamed the earth. I was a little embarrassed, but assumed this was "normal." I'm glad those days are behind us!

I am waiting for someone to argue when life begins on a mortgage that is based on "family size" income limits.  If a couple is expecting their first child, are they a family of two or three?

I missed the uproar and the other post - but this makes perfect sense. I would not term pregnancy or maternity leave as a 'disability' but I guess the banking industry has deemed it such. I do understand the financial aspect of it, all to do with income and ratios.

Heck, people don't even understand that if they buy a truck or a bunch of new furniture before settlement that it can jeopardize their purchase. I guess the next step is to have a CAVEAT sheet printed in red and orange when prospects take application - BEWARE THESE CONDITIONS CAN JEOPARDIZE YOUR CLOSING! and list them for the uneducated or ill-advised.

Full doc, in my opinion, does still discriminate against the self-employed or independent contractors.  They only count your "net" and then if you write off your car, they go and count that again in debt ratios.  So I disagree with your statement if you have a job and pay your bills you can easily get a loan.

I was wondering where the confusion was too.  It is very logical (you need a steady income!).  Thanks for blog and great job!!

Television news seems to do one of two things repeatedly:

1)  give a maximum of 30-45 seconds to something that really deserves a minimum of 10 minutes, or

2) they make it a longer story, but only get experts on one side of the issue.

If they ever got back to actually covering the news in a competent manner, we wouldn't have to keep fighting these brush fires.

Better get that 7-month-pregnant in a home, quick!!

Someone out there always makes our jobs harder because they don't take the time to get all the facts or get clarification to something that isn't clear. Or, better yet, just using common sense...when one is on maternity leave there is a drop in income. When mom goes back to work and hires day care there is an additional monthly expense that has to go into the ratio equation. Great info in the post and comments!