No income verification mortgages: what's actually possible on the home you live in.

Since January 2014, federal rules have required a lender to make a reasonable, good-faith judgment, backed by verified records, that you can repay a mortgage on a home you live in. That's the ability-to-repay rule, and it governs the standard first mortgage on a primary residence. The records can be your income or your assets: the rule lets a lender qualify you on assets you hold, other than the home itself, instead of income. What it rules out is a primary-home first mortgage approved with nothing verified at all. When you see one advertised, read the fine print: it's usually an alternative-documentation program wearing a new name.

What the rule allows is a different kind of proof. A profit and loss statement from your CPA, or a year or two of bank deposits, can stand in for tax returns and pay stubs. That's mainstream non-QM lending, and it's most of what this guide covers.

HELOCs are open-ended credit lines, and federal law treats them under a separate set of rules. That is why a HELOC with no income documents can exist on a home you own, even though a no-doc first mortgage on that same home cannot.

Credit for a business purpose, such as buying, improving or keeping up a rental you don't live in, generally falls outside these consumer rules. The purpose of the money decides it, not just the property: cash taken out of a rental for personal spending can still count as consumer credit. Our No-Ratio loan is built for investment properties: no income documents, no debt-to-income math, approved on credit, liquid assets and equity.

It's the most common question we get from owner-occupants. Cash-heavy revenue, pay that passes through your company first, a seasonal slow stretch, a year of lumpy deposits: if your statements would invite a pile of follow-up questions, a bank statement loan is the wrong tool.

A P&L loan qualifies you on that single statement and never reads your bank accounts to find your income. The credit floor is 640 and the smallest loan is $150,000. Purchases need 20% down at 680+, 25% at 660–679 and 30% at 640–659. Refinances (cash-out or rate-and-term) reach up to 75% of value at 660+ and 70% at 640–659.

Clean, steady deposits make a bank statement loan the better fit more often than not. Its floor is 620 in first position (the P&L's is 640), and it goes smaller than the P&L's $150,000 minimum. Income is figured from 12 months of personal statements, or 12 or 24 months of business statements: personal deposits count in full, and business deposits count after an expense factor.

It works on primary homes and investment properties, not second homes. The reserve requirement, the expense factor on business deposits and the loan limit are all set on your file.

If you need cash and your first mortgage is fine as it is, the no-income HELOC is the lightest file we offer on a home you live in: no tax returns, W-2s, pay stubs or other income documents. It takes 680+ credit and a line of $150,000 or more, your first mortgage doesn't move, and there's no title seasoning. It's refinance-only, on a home you already own.

Under 680, the same HELOC program qualifies on household income from 620: everyone who lives in the home can count, even people who aren't on the loan.

On an investment property, our No-Ratio loan skips income documentation entirely and never calculates a debt-to-income ratio. It starts at 680 credit and goes up to 65% of value, so 35% down on a purchase. Below 680, a P&L loan (from 640, on loans of $150,000 or more) or a bank statement loan (from 620) is the closer fit.

The other rental route is a DSCR loan: the rent qualifies the loan, and your personal income never comes up.

Nowhere do lenders disagree more than on income documentation. We're a broker, so your file is matched against many lenders' guidelines, not just one. When the tax return is the only problem in an otherwise strong file, the fix is usually finding the right lender, and that's our job.