Contract Workers, How do you get into a house?

Danielh22185

I know with the IT world there is a strong majority of people that work contract to hire jobs or strait contracting jobs. My wife and I are trying to get into a house as you might have deducted from the thread title.

Anyways, we applied for a loan and were denied because of my current employment situation. I am on a contract to hire through my company. We were denied basically because I don't have that extra security buffer of employment status. I am employed via a temp agency so I do have W2 trails.

Basically what I want to know is are there any of you who currently own a home or applied for a loan with temp employment situations similar to mine? If so what route did you take?

This is really disheartening because my wife and I have more than the financial assets ready to sign for a loan. My current employment status is what is holding us back.

I appreciate any info you might have.

Thanks!

chaser7783

At the time I purchased my new home I was a contract employee. The one main thing they cared about in my instance was that I was employed for over a year at the same company, and that I had enough in savings to take care of bills for a few months in case of a financial emergency.

I had a co-worker try but was denied b/c he has employed for under a year at the company.

jibbajabba

Here in the UK I have a colleague who used to be contractor and went permanent 'temporarily' as his mortgage would be 15% more expensive as contract worker. His temporary permanent position seems to be properly permanent now though.

tpatt100

I have bounced between contractor and "hired" over the years when I change jobs. I have never done the "temp to hire" but I think contractor for some of us is different because speaking for myself when I was a "contractor" I was working for a company with no chance of being direct hired.

When I refinanced my house last year it was after coming off a 6 month unemployment. I was told it did not matter because even though I was at the new job for 8 months my work history showed consistency with working and salary increases with each new job.

Akaricloud

From what I've seen it really depends on the loan officer that you're working with. If you can show constant, increasing work in the same industry for the past two years most won't have any issue getting a loan set up but there are definitely some that follow hard rules.

I would strongly suggest getting a second opinion as long as you can show consistent income history.

Danielh22185

Ya we are defiantly getting a second opinion. I have had consistent work history for the past 10 years. Thanks for the ideas everyone. If worse comes to worst we will just be saving even more money to put down.

Mrock4

I don't think I'd say there is a majority in IT working contracts- definitely a decent amount, but not even half, in my experience.

And I was a full-time employee working on a gov't contract when we bought- it wasn't a problem as long as we provided proof of steady income.