I bought a house shortly after upgrade. The lender did not understand pilot pay at all, so I had to make my case like so....

Showed him several years of tax returns, and old paystubs with hourly rates.

Made the case that I could demonstrate a linear relationship between my old hourly rate and my old tax returns. Then applied the ratio between new and old hourly rates to old gross income to obtain a reasonable projected future gross income.

I would not mention reserve, guarantee, or per diem unless they ask. Also would not get into the affects of seniority. Longevity is fair game since that's guaranteed annual raises.

Cool, thanks. Sounds like a pain to explain all that. Hopefully I'll find a lender that wont give me too much of a hard time.

I'm tired of apartments...

Most of them are pretty good these days. If they don’t understand pilot pay and are a PIA about it, don’t waste your time and just get another lender. Many of them have worked with pilots and are easy to deal with.

I’m on year 4 pay and will break that fairly easily.

They will only use your NET pay. Per diam will not count as income. My sister is a loan officer.

Best of Luck

As said FOs who work it can make as much as a reserve captain.
The FOs who enjoy their seniority while they have it can upgrade and see an 80% increase in check size. And that is not killing yourself either.

It is a huge spread of possibilities.
If you have been killing yourself and plan to keep doing that then roughly guess your % gain in check size will be the same as the % gain in hourly pay. There's your answer.