Foreign income and employment history are not accepted by US mortgage underwriting systems

When an immigrant on an H-1B or L-1 visa applies for a mortgage, most US lenders require 2 years of US-based W-2 income and US tax returns. Foreign income earned before arriving in the US — even from the same multinational employer — is not accepted by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac's automated underwriting systems (Desktop Underwriter and Loan Prospector). So what? This means an engineer transferred from Google Zurich to Google Mountain View, earning $200,000/year with 10 years of employment history, is told they have 'insufficient income history' because only 6 months of their income is US-sourced. So what? Without qualifying for a conforming loan (backed by Fannie/Freddie), they are pushed to portfolio lenders or foreign national loan programs that charge 1-2% higher interest rates and require 25-30% down payments instead of the standard 3-20%. So what? On a $600,000 home, that means paying $12,000-$24,000 more per year in interest and needing $150,000-$180,000 as a down payment instead of $18,000-$120,000, a difference that locks many immigrants out of homeownership for years. So what? Delayed homeownership means the immigrant misses years of equity building and property appreciation in the US market, widening the wealth gap between immigrant and US-born professionals with identical incomes. So what? This wealth gap compounds generationally: the immigrant's children start with less family wealth, fewer assets to use as collateral for their own ventures, and reduced access to the intergenerational wealth transfer mechanisms (home equity, property inheritance) that US-born families rely on for economic mobility. This persists structurally because Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's underwriting guidelines are designed around US tax documentation (W-2, 1040), there is no standardized way to verify foreign employment income across 190+ countries, and lenders face higher compliance costs when manually underwriting non-standard loan files, making it economically rational to simply reject them.