Lendmire Research

The two decisions run on separate tracks: your personal lease has nothing to do with how a lender underwrites the rental purchase.

It doesn’t reset your eligibility for future first-time-homebuyer programs, and it doesn’t require you to buy where you live.

DSCR financing is for someone who has no intention of living there and wants the loan to qualify on the property’s rent instead of a paycheck.

Rental purchases generally require more equity up front and get priced for the extra risk lenders attach to non-owner-occupied real estate.

– DSCR loans qualify on the property’s rent-to-payment relationship. Conventional loans qualify on the borrower’s income, credit, and debt-to-income ratio.

This piece walks through the mechanics step by step, the variations that exist across the market, and where the general rule breaks down.

What follows walks through both paths, where the general rule breaks down, and what the qualification math actually looks like on a file.

Interest-only availability is a separate overlay layered on top of property eligibility, not an automatic feature that comes with every eligible asset.

What changes is the math inside underwriting, the documents tied to that math, and what happens once the interest-only period runs out.

Nobody skips paperwork by going interest-only.

A 700+ score typically unlocks the strongest interest-only leverage and pricing tiers.

Interest-only DSCR Loan Down Payment — Choosing an interest-only structure does not lower your down payment on its own.

– A DSCR floor of 1.00 is where select programs in the network start, not a universal industry standard; it’s a per-program threshold.