BeingHopeful,
I'm going through this right now. I did the counselling online/over the phone through Genesis Housing Services out of Arizona. (I'm in Wisconsin). It's been a bit of a ride.
I talked to a few morgage brokers who either didn't know of the program or didn't have any lenders who were adopting the guidelines. Finally, I talked to a local mortgage broker who had not yet written a Back to Work loan, but had been trained on it and had a wholesale lender who had provided them with information on it and indicated they had adopted the guidelines.
I put together a LOT of paperwork. W2s, tax returns, verifications of earnings (salary keys for the work number), severance/layoff notice, recorded deed transfer for my deed-in-lieu from the county, divorce papers, bank statements, ira statements... pretty much anything my broker and I thought could possibly be necessary.
After reviewing everything, my broker issued me a pre-approval letter based on FHA back to work guidelines.
After waiting out the 30-day waiting period on the counselling, I submitted an offer to purchase and we submitted our formal loan app to underwriting. Underwriters came back less than 24 hours later seeking some additional information, but nothing that we shouldn't be able to produce from all the paperwork we had pre-gathered.
That's where we're at now; waiting for the underwriters second look. Hopefully I'll have some good news in the next couple days.
The program is so new, it seems everyone is cautious and somewhat uncertain about it. Call around to a LOT of brokers until you find one that sounds confident about the program, and knows they have a participating lender that they can write with. Get all of your paperwork ready, anything you think you could possibly need... and make sure to read and re-read the 2013-26 Mortagee Letter to ensure that you meet all of the criteria spelled out.
I'll let you know how my underwriting turns out. Best of luck to you!
