Tonight on News 3 Live at 11, the local housing market remains on fire. It gets so intricate and convoluted. Find out why one group of potential home buyers is having trouble getting a mortgage. News 3 starts right now. It's causing a lot of people to lose money, and it's probably going to get a little bit worse before it gets better. As Las Vegas reopens, the housing market remains red hot. But some experts warn it's now harder for one group of potential buyers to get a home loan. Good evening and thank you for joining us. I'm Steve Wolford. It's our top story tonight. News 3's Lauren Clark is joining us to explain why the self-employed are running into some issues. Lauren. Well, Steve, again, it boils down to one factor, COVID. One lender I spoke to says this warning is for the self-employed who've bought a home before.
Don't expect it to be as easy as it was before. For Stuart Schwartz and his wife, moving to Las Vegas struck the right note. We love the entertainment. We love the food. Finding a home was easy. Then came the tricky part, the home loan. It's a bumpy ride. The Schwartzes are self-employed. Stuart didn't imagine it would be a problem. Didn't expect it. I thought it was going to be a breeze. The last house we bought was the same thing. VA, bam, we were approved right away. But turns out. COVID changed that immensely. Andrew Leavitt, the CEO of PIF Lending, says the self-employed now face stricter federal guidelines for
home loans. They put all these restrictions in place to ensure that the business is alive at the current time that the loan will close. And most of the guidelines started changing around March 13th, March 21st, 22nd, 2020. And they've gotten stricter and stricter and stricter, and they've added more and more and more as more people go into foreclosure and go into short sale. That makes the process complicated. It gets so intricate and convoluted. Leaving some borrowers denied or others like the Schwartzes severely delayed.
When you have all these things hanging over your head, you're losing sleep because you don't know where you will live or how you will get there. And Andrew warns it could be an issue in the months to come. It's causing a lot of people to lose money. And it's probably going to get a little bit worse before it gets better. Luckily, the Schwartzes saw a change in tune after Andrew could assist. The reaction was to go to my liquor cabinet and pull out a fine bottle of tequila. Loving their new home, struggle and all. It was celebratory. And if you're self-employed or an independent contractor, Uber driver, or any type of profession where you file a 1099, Leavitt has this slice of advice, try to meet with your lender three to nine months out of buying a home to get everything prepared.
Reporting live from the studio,
Lauren Clark, News 3.
