Hard Money Lender Requirements
Credit score plays a role, but a soft score rarely kills a deal the way a low appraisal or a shaky exit plan will.
Credit score plays a role, but a soft score rarely kills a deal the way a low appraisal or a shaky exit plan will.
Get the fork wrong at the start and every number after it — leverage, documentation, timeline expectations — comes out wrong too.
The lender still has to verify stable, repeatable income; the friction is entirely about documentation, not eligibility.
A shorter history — 12 to 24 months — can work if you’re doing the same job you did as a W-2 employee.
– Closed-End Home Equity Loan: A lump-sum loan secured by home equity, repaid on a fixed schedule with no ability to redraw funds once it closes.
Using HELOC As Down Payment For Investment Property: what investors need to know about home-equity financing, from Lendmire.
The friction isn’t eligibility; it’s paperwork and how a lender chooses to read it.
– Bank statement loan: a loan or credit line qualified using deposit history from bank statements instead of W-2s or tax returns.
The specifics depend on your equity, your credit, and which lender’s guidelines fit the file. That’s the short version.
It lets an investor pull equity out without refinancing, or disturbing, the first mortgage at all.
– Underwriting still runs on the borrower’s personal credit, income, and DTI — not the property’s rent, which is the opposite of how a DSCR loan qualifies.
A lender may restrict how a business-purpose DSCR loan’s proceeds get used, but that’s a use-of-funds category, not a reinvestment order.
For a self-employed real estate investor, that third category is usually the one that actually gets a deal closed.
– Cash-out leverage tops out around 75% LTV across most of the network, regardless of how much higher a rate-and-term or purchase transaction might go.
Can You Get A Mortgage With 1099 Income — Yes. You qualify on documented income, just not the tax-return version.