If you work at Amazon, Microsoft, Google, or any of the hundreds of tech and corporate employers in the greater Seattle area, there’s a good chance equity compensation — restricted stock units, restricted stock grants, or stock options — makes up a meaningful portion of your total pay. Understanding how mortgage lenders treat this income is essential before you apply, because the rules are more nuanced than most buyers expect and the guidelines have recently been updated.
Here’s what Washington State tech workers and equity-compensated buyers need to know. [Read more…]
If your paycheck includes more than just a base salary — a year-end bonus, regular overtime, or commission — you may have more mortgage qualifying power than you realize. Variable income is usable for mortgage qualifying, but the rules around how lenders calculate it trip up a lot of buyers at the preapproval stage.
Credit score is one of the first things buyers worry about when they start thinking about a mortgage — and for good reason. It affects what programs you qualify for, what interest rate you receive, and in some cases how your entire application is evaluated. But the relationship between credit score and mortgage qualification is more nuanced than most people realize, and it’s changing.
If you’ve been following the headlines lately, you may have seen reporting on how 
