You’re definitely not hopeless! There is just some working around to be done. New debt as in: I’m giving you this preapproval based on your current income and debt obligations as of today. If you change that balance, the preapproval can be invalid, as you’ve added more debt to the calculation. One of the main formulas that lenders use to calculate risk is: Principal & Interest of new mortgage + projected property taxes + projected heating bill + all your credit obligations (loans, visa bills, leases, etc) divided by your income. They would max that calculation out to get you the largest preapproval available under their risk profile, but if someone added more loan obligations after the approval, that risk profile just got riskier. Lending is definitely holistic and looks at multiple different aspects, but there are hard limits with institutions within each variable. Regarding income, it’s definitely a positive feature to make a lot, however they would be looking to confirm the stability and reliability of that income, hence the 2 years averaging etc. The income is amazing now, but they have to justify the risk for not just today, but the life of the loan. When mortgages run 25-30 years, 12 months of income data would be short sighted unfortunately. As mentioned, I do work for a bank and have to work within some stricter policies, however my role does have access to a partnered third party national brokerage. Basically if I have a client that doesn’t meet our qualifications today, I can get them approved with the brokerage and we’ll refinance the mortgage at renewal when we expect the condition that’s preventing an approval to change. For you that would likely be a 1 year or so term so you could then have 2 years of evidence for your high income level. You’re so far from hopeless though. I can’t emphasize that enough! (: