Many people earn part or all of their income from commissions. Commission income is permissible for mortgage loan qualification if a few requirements are met.

Generally, Conventional, FHA and VA loans require that the applicant have received the commission income for at least two years. The amount of income used to qualify will be based on an average of the past two years of commissions. Commission income should for the most part also show increases from year to year.

There are some borrowers that will qualify with less than the two years of commission income. These would be people that work for a company on a regular basis, but get paid piece work; such as auto mechanics, auto body repair technicians, medical billing transcribers and others that work a steady job for a company, but that company has chosen to treat their employees as private contractors. In such cases less than two years of commission income is permissible, however there must be at least twelve (12) months of commission income and a year of tax returns filed with commission income.

It is by no means a deal-killer if you’ve recently gone from being W-2’d to 1099’d, but you do have to have received 1099 income for at least twelve (12) months and filed tax returns with such before it can be counted as qualifying income for a mortgage loan, and must be documentable as continuing in the future.

As always, don’t hesitate to contact me with any questions you may have.