An Open Letter to Mortgage Lenders

September 4, 2009

Ok, since when did it become in style to keep SELF-EMPLOYED PEOPLE from buying new houses?

The nice man who runs the mail store by my house with his wife can’t get a loan.  Mind you, he’s been there for 15 years and everybody knows his name.  He has enough to buy a house cash.

I got my loan (I’m self-employed), but it’s only “conditionally approved.”  They wanted W2s.  Harping on W2s.  Gotta have those W2s.  Excuse me?

Wasn’t it the W2 crowd who got WIPED OUT in the recent past recession?  Yet they can get a loan over me??  Why?

Because they’re considered more “stable.”

I don’t know how you call at-will employment “more stable” than building and keeping your own business for a number of years.  At-will is just that – at the employer’s will.  You can get dumped for no reason at all.  And as we have seen, you can get your savings taken as well.

Also, those rising unemployment numbers aren’t from self-employed people.  That’s the W2 crowd.  Self-employed folks are off the books until tax time.

It’s the W2 crowd you banks should look out for.

The self-employed person with the stated income is the only one who can weather a recession without getting wiped out.  The self-employed person has the ability to employ others, thus securing other families’ lifestyles as well.  The self-employed person would never let a bad month ruin him, because he actually LIKES what he does for a living. 

The country doesn’t want to help stabilize these people, the future and present employers of America?  The little guys who get up every morning with honor, knowing that they can make an honest living without stealing other people’s money, like all those “W2” bozos do?

The government should be JUMPING at the chance to get self-employed people into houses, because mortgages require that you put all your money ON THE BOOKS.  It would prop up GDP, raise tax revenues, and possibly shore up these unemployment numbers.  In short, it would end the recession.

Banks should be JUMPING to get the self-employed business, because to create a relationship with a growing company is just good business.  W2-havers are dead ends.  Their incomes have a ceiling, and as we see now, are not even stable.

I just don’t get it.

Anyone want to help me out here?