From what I have learned it is impossible for professional poker players to get a mortgage, so do all professional poker players have to have the full amount of cash to buy a house?

Pre bubble in America it was EXTREMELY EASY to get a loan as a poker player. Post bubble, nowadays some banks no longer count online poker as an income (wells fargo comes to mind...not sure if it's still that way, but about 4 years ago they no longer counted online poker income)

Some banks still allow it though (with 2 years of tax returns)...others won't. I've gotten all sorts of loans for personal residence and investment property with poker either being the reason, or helping out with everything. And I've done 50%, 30%, 20%, 3.5%, and 0% down...all because/help from poker.

"Straight cash homie."

Some can't even rent much less buy.

LOL I got a mortgage post bubble and have rented numerous places, walked out of car dealership with a new car with just a signature. It's not any different than anyone else just maintain your credit score. Worse case the underwriter might ask for an extra letter of reference, just wrote one for my buddy's condo (his second).

Uhhh, no. You need more than a good credit score for a house mortgage.

Schedule C.

Uhhh, yes. I'm a professional and just bought a house recently. Put 20% down and showed 2 years tax returns, very good credit, some extra cash leftover after down payment, zero debt, ect.

What he was saying is, the process shouldn't really be any different than someone with a normal job.

I would think that with widely fluctuation tax-returns it would be hard to get a mortgage as a poker player. Not because you're a poker player but because I thought you needed to provide tax returns (credit score is worthless if it's 750+).

I've actually been in the market for a mortgage casually and have been learning a bit here and there. Two things that I didn't really know existed (I'm a fish/new at this):

1. Asset backed mortgages (anyone have experience with these?) They seem to be good for someone with a lot of savings but tax returns that would otherwise be a turn-off to banks.

2. Mortgage brokers - how do you find one? How do you differentiate between the good ones and the bad ones?

Thanks for any input!

Harry

They don't look at month vs. month....all they do is look at the year, divide by 12, and call that your income.

Even if you did $150K one year then $80K the next year, they won't care. Lots of professions have variable income (sales/real estate agents/others)...so don't over think it.

(now if you did $80K then $20K, yeah, that'd be an issue, and you probably couldn't get a mortgage)

I bought a house 2 months ago as a poker pro with a 15 year mortgage. I put down 20% and showed them tax forms from the past two years. I also have a large amount of savings in stocks and retirement accounts. I did co-buy the house with my fiance who has little savings (but a decent job), so that probably helped my case. One strange thing is they asked for 3 months worth of bank statements and they would not accept the cash deposits I made to my bank account during that time. I am a live cash player - so this is obviously a problem. They said they need receipts for the transactions... which clearly is impossible/illogical. Luckily, I won a large amount in a tournament during those three months and deposited the sum via a check from the casino - which the mortgage company had no problems with. They didn't care about my Bovada checks either. Apparently, they just don't like cash deposits without a paper trail. I went thru the internet company aim loan. They have low rates and all the communication is done online. They are sort of slow to respond and had me send multiple of the same documents several times but I'd still probably recommend them.

Ya it's no different then any other job. You just need to show tax returns. They however will take your lowest year. If you do 80k then 120k, they will use the 80k. They do however like to see it going up and 80k to 120k is way better then 120k to 80k.

This however only works if you have been paying taxes on poker winnings.

They do this because they want to make sure someone else hasn't loaned you the money for the down payment, or just let you borrow it to show assets and then you give it back to them. A few years back they did the same thing with me and wanted to know where 10k wires were coming from so I took screenshots of my bodog account with my name shown and account history and they accepted it. This was when it was real tough to get a mortgage.

Get a legit job for a few months

I say you need more than just a good credit score and then you say I'm wrong and list all the things you need lmao. Good one.

You need 2 years at the job for it to count.

So many stupid people posting. Don't post if you don't know what you are talking about.

I listed all the standard things that anyone needs because it should be the same for a poker player, which is what the guy's post that you quoted was saying.

From reading his post it's pretty obvious he wasn't saying the ONLY thing a poker player (or anyone else) needs to show to buy a house is a good credit score. Read his post again, I doubt that's how you would summarize it then.

Guess you shouldn't have posted your op then, because you clearly didn't know what you were talking about when you said you've learned it's impossible for professional poker players to get a mortgage.

Your question has been answered by several professional poker players. So, happy house hunting!

And what I said is true. It is impossible to get a loan from certain banks as a professional poker player that is true. So, the question would be where can I find a list of banks that will accept poker income.

What do you need a list of banks for. Obviously don't go to Lil Sally's Credit Union. You shouldn't have a problem with any major bank. They work strictly on numbers from your taxes. I got mine from BOA. I've also done business with Quicken Loans with poker income.

Can we talk about this further? Im expecting to buy a house early next year. A large private debt that is owed to me will likely be repaid in cash shortly before I would be making a down-payment on a home. I intend to use this money for the down-payment. Is this going to be an issue?

It very likely will be. You'll basically need to be able to prove what the deal with the cash is I'm guessing.

I bought a house as a professional poker player and it was a bit of a nightmare.

We tried to do it solely on my wife to avoid issues but she only qualified for roughly 90% of the loan out we were looking for.

I thought no problem, I'm making over 2x as much money as she was making so this should be simple. Had tax returns showing~100k/yr for 2 years prior to purchase.

Of course it was not easy at all and we almost were not able to close. Just strap on your seat belt. We closed 3 weeks before Black Friday though so maybe the banks knew I was going to be out of a job in less than a month...

why was it a nightmare? Did you put 20% down? I could understand having big issues if you don't put down 20%, but if you do and have tax returns it should be fairly easy