Buying a home before your new job starts

A lender normally verifies the job you have. When you are moving for a new one, the job you have is about to end and the new one has not started. Fannie Mae’s guidelines handle this with a specific rule for employment offers and contracts, and it has two paths. Which one your loan uses decides how much flexibility you have.

The two paths

Close before you start. This is the path most relocating buyers need. It applies when all of these are true:

• A purchase, not a refinance.
• A one-unit home you will live in as your primary residence.
• A start date no more than 90 days after closing, or no earlier than 30 days before it.
• A signed, non-contingent offer letter or contract naming the employer, your position, your pay and your start date.
• An employer who is not a family member and not a party to the home sale.

Close, then wait for a paystub. The second path has fewer limits on the property and no start-date window, but the lender cannot sell the loan until your first paystub from the new job arrives. Some lenders will close and hold the loan until then; many will not. If your start date is more than 90 days out, or you are buying a 2–4 unit home, this is the only route, and the lender’s willingness is the first question to ask.

Only your base salary counts

On the close-before-you-start path, you qualify on fixed base pay alone. The lender uses the monthly amount in the offer letter. Bonus, commission, RSUs and sign-on money do not count, however large, until there is a history of receiving them. If your offer is heavy on variable pay, run the numbers on base salary first. How that income becomes usable later is covered in qualifying with variable pay.

The extra savings requirement

Because you will close before your first paycheck, the lender needs to see that you can carry the gap. On top of whatever reserves the approval already requires, you document one of these:

• Six months of the new housing payment, including taxes, insurance and any HOA dues; or
• Enough to cover every monthly obligation in your debt-to-income ratio, the new housing payment included, for each month between closing and your start date, plus one more month.

An example, with round numbers: a new housing payment of $3,800, other monthly debts of $900, and a start date two months after closing.

With a short gap, the second option is usually the smaller number. With a start date close to the 90-day limit, it can pass the first.

Before you sign the offer

• Get it in writing and fully signed, by you and the employer, with the start date and the base salary stated.
• Watch for conditions. A background check, drug screen or licensing requirement does not disqualify the offer, but the lender has to confirm before closing that every condition has been met. Ask the employer to confirm in writing when they clear.
• Keep the start date inside the window. If the employer is flexible, a start date within 90 days of the planned closing keeps the first path open.
• Tell me before you resign, if you are already in a loan process. A job change mid-file is a different situation, covered in changing jobs before closing.

If you are on a work visa, the same income rules apply to you as to a citizen. The visa itself is covered on the H1B mortgage page.

The home you are leaving

If you still own your current home, it is part of the approval. There are three ways it can go:

• Sold before or at the same time. The old payment drops out, and the proceeds can fund the new purchase.
• Under contract but not closed. The old payment can be left out if the sale contract is signed and the buyer’s financing contingency has cleared.
• Kept as a rental. Under Fannie Mae’s rebuilt rental income rules, required for applications dated December 1, 2026 or later, a lease is no longer used. The rent figure comes from market evidence, 75% of it can offset that home’s payment, and buyers new to being landlords need six months of that home’s payment in reserve. The details are in buying before you sell.

Otherwise, both housing payments count against your income. With base salary only on the new side, that is often the number that decides it.

Relocation money from your employer

An employer grant or loan from an established company relocation program can go toward the down payment, closing costs and reserves on a home you will live in. The lender documents the program, the amount and that the money came from the employer. If the employer is buying your current home through a relocation plan, the lender needs a copy of the signed buy-out agreement. A one-time relocation payment that has already landed in your account is documented like any other large deposit, so keep the paperwork that shows where it came from.

What decides it on your file

• Your start date, measured against the closing date.
• Base salary alone, against both housing payments if the old home is not sold.
• Savings after the down payment, enough for the normal reserves plus the gap.
• The lender, since some add their own limits to this rule and some will not hold a loan for a paystub.

I would line up the offer letter and the reserve math before you choose a closing date, because the start date and the closing date have to work together. For the relocation side of the move, the relocation partners page covers how I work with relocation teams.

General information about Fannie Mae guidelines for employment offers and contracts, not a commitment to lend. Freddie Mac, FHA and VA have their own rules for income that starts after closing, and individual lenders may apply requirements stricter than the agency rules described. The reserve example uses round numbers for illustration only. Forest Hills Mortgage LLC, NMLS #1982611. Matt Mergo, NMLS #563819. Licensed in Florida, Pennsylvania and Texas. Equal Housing Opportunity.