A young man had been sort of stuck in an employment rut. He was sharp, good with people and was always willing to help the next guy with pretty much about anything he could. One day, he got an email from an uncle with a suggestion. The suggestion was that he should explore a job in sales. There's good money in it and while it may take some time to ramp up, the commissions from those sales would far outweigh what he might make with a straight salary. So, that's the path he decided to take. Hey, if it didn't work out he could always find a salary-based marketing position.
After a little searching, he decided to try his hand at automobile sales. His research showed that while it was tough to break into auto sales, once established he could potential reach a six-figure pace within the next 12 months. He paid attention to his boss and sales manager and worked extra hours to learn more at a faster pace. His base pay was relatively small and wouldn't last forever anyway. More research showed that the dropout rate for auto sales was remarkably high. But the real money makers had stayed in the business and were making some very good cash.
His uncle was right. There certainly was a ramp-up period needed but he did all the right things and contacted all his friends and relatives to let them know that when they need to buy a new car, to give him the opportunity to help. He took various sales courses to sharpen his skills and worked more hours at the dealership than anyone else. A few months later it started to click. He averaged one sale per week and soon thereafter those sales became more frequent. He was really pulling in some good-sized commission checks.
After reaching his one-year anniversary in sales he came to the conclusion to stop renting and to buy his first home. Just exploring at first, but everything he read told him to buy real estate and quit throwing away his money each month in rent. He also hit up some online mortgage calculators that provided him with total monthly house payments along with how much he needed to make each month in order to qualify. His income showed that he could qualify for much more than he had expected. He was excited and called his real estate buddy to start looking for a home. His agent then told him to apply for a mortgage and get a preapproval letter before going too much further. He did just that.
But he didn't get the answer he wanted. He was turned down. He had good credit, more than enough income and more than sufficient funds for a down payment and closing costs. His loan officer told him there were two basic issues.
The first being his length of employment. Most mortgage programs require the applicant have at least two years of employment. He only had worked for 13 months. The second problem was how he got paid. Lenders want to see a solid track record of commissions over at least a two year period. This income needed to be both consistent and paid on a regular basis. The bottom line was he had to wait.
But, in less than a year he will have met both the income and employment requirements. And at that time, he did buy his first home. Comfortably, I might add.
