Six ways to finance the rental. The right one depends on the door, the deal, and how many properties you already own.
IMAGE PLACEHOLDER — HERO BANNER (full-width, ~1600×900)Investor reviewing rental property paperwork at a kitchen table, daylight, real-feel. Suggested search: real estate investor laptop, multifamily property, rental keys, Florida duplex.
Buying a rental is a different sport than buying the house you live in. Different down payment. Different reserves. Different rules about how the bank treats your income, your tax returns, your LLC, and the rent the property is going to pay you. The wrong loan structure on your first rental can quietly limit how many properties you can own over the next ten years — so it pays to know your options before you make an offer.
Here is the truth most investors learn the hard way: there is no single “investment property loan.” There are six. Each one solves a different problem, and the right one for your fifth rental is almost never the right one for your eleventh. Conventional pricing is the cheapest — but Fannie Mae caps you at ten financed properties, and once you hit that ceiling, the agency door closes. After that, DSCR and portfolio financing take over.
My job is to show you all six paths up front — so you stop guessing, stop overpaying for the wrong product, and stop getting told no by big-box lenders who only know how to do one thing. Below: every investor loan we offer, who each one is built for, and a click-through to the deeper page if you want to go all the way under the hood.
How to Think About It (The 30-Second Version)
Three questions decide which loan you should be looking at. Answer them and half the work is already done.
- How many financed properties do you own right now? (Including your primary, second home, and every rental.) Under 10 — conventional is on the table. 10 or more — you are in DSCR or portfolio territory.
- How does your tax return look? If you write everything off and your AGI is low, full-doc conventional will fight you. DSCR or bank-statement programs do not care about your 1040.
- What is the property doing? Long-term rental, short-term rental, foreign national purchase, or a 5-property bundle? The answer narrows your options down to one or two products fast.
Three Strategies Almost Every Successful Investor Uses
Before we dive into the product menu, three plays worth knowing — because they shape which loan you should pick at each stage of your build.
1. House-Hacking
Buy a 2–4 unit property as a primary residence, live in one unit, rent the others. You get owner-occupied financing — 5% down on a duplex with conventional, 3.5% down with FHA — and the rental income from the other units helps you qualify. After a year, you can move out, buy another house hack, and the previous property converts to a pure rental at conventional NOO terms. Repeat this twice and you own 6 doors with very little down.
2. The 10-Property Runway
Use your conventional NOO financing aggressively for your first ten financed properties. That is the cheapest investor money in the entire mortgage market — 15% down on a 1-unit, 25% on a 2-4 unit, agency rates, no DSCR overlay. Most investors leave money on the table by jumping to DSCR too early “for convenience.” Convenience costs about 0.50%–1.00% in rate. Burn through your ten before you give that up.
3. BRRRR — Buy, Rehab, Rent, Refinance, Repeat
The play that built most modern rental portfolios: acquire a distressed property with hard money or cash, rehab it, lease it up, then refinance into long-term financing using the new (higher) appraised value to pull most or all of your capital back out. Roll that capital into the next deal. Most BRRRR refinances exit into either DSCR (if you are over 10 properties or closing in an LLC) or conventional NOO (if you have agency capacity left).
IMAGE PLACEHOLDER — MID-PAGE (~1200×700)Investor walking through a property with a contractor — implies BRRRR / value-add work. Suggested search: real estate investor contractor, walking through duplex, rehab project, blueprint walkthrough.
The Six Investor Loan Options
Each card is the 60-second version. Tap through to the deeper page when you want full underwriting detail, real-world numbers, and the FAQ for that specific product.
Conventional NOO (1-Unit)
The cheapest investor money in the mortgage market.
Standard Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac investment-property financing on single-family rentals and warrantable condos. 15% down on purchase (lowest in residential investor lending), 680 minimum credit, qualifies on full-doc personal income plus rental income from existing or projected rents. The right product for properties one through ten of your portfolio.
Conventional NOO (2-4 Unit)
Scale door-count without leaving agency pricing.
Same agency framework as 1-unit NOO, scaled to duplex / triplex / fourplex. 25% minimum down, 75% of gross rents from all units count toward qualifying income. Each parcel still counts as one property against the ten-property cap — so four fourplexes = sixteen doors at agency rates.
DSCR (The Rent Qualifies the Loan)
No tax returns. No DTI. No personal income docs.
Debt Service Coverage Ratio loans qualify the property by comparing gross rent to PITIA — not your 1040. 660 minimum credit, 80% LTV on purchase, closes in your name or your LLC, eligible on 1-4 unit residential, condos, condotels, and short-term rentals. The default product after you cap out on agency, and the workhorse of every BRRRR refinance in Florida.
Bank Statement / Asset Depletion
When DSCR will not work and full-doc will not work either.
For investors whose tax returns understate their actual income (heavy write-offs) but whose property cannot hit DSCR ≥ 1.00. Two doors: 12 or 24 months of bank-statement deposits used as qualifying income, OR liquid assets divided across 60/84/120 months and treated as monthly cash flow. High-write-off investors and high-net-worth retirees both win here.
Foreign National
No US credit, no SSN, no problem.
Non-US citizens with no US residency status purchasing US investment property. International credit reference instead of a US credit score, 30% minimum down, 12 months of US-seasoned reserves, closes in your name or a US LLC. South Florida is the largest market in the country for this — we work these deals constantly.
Portfolio Loans (5+ Properties)
Bundle multiple rentals into one loan.
Once you own five or more rentals, refinancing each one separately turns into a part-time job. Portfolio loans bundle 5+ properties (some programs go down to 3) into a single loan with one underwriting cycle, one closing, one monthly statement. Pricing runs slightly higher than single-property DSCR — the trade is consolidation efficiency.
Three Things Most Investors Do Not Know Going In
INSIDER INSIGHT #1 — The 10-property cap counts your primary and your second home.
Fannie Mae’s 10-financed-property limit is not “10 rentals.” It is 10 total financed properties on your credit. Primary residence counts. Vacation home counts. So if you own a home, a Smoky Mountain second home, and 8 rentals — you are at 10, and the next conventional file is going to bounce. This is why investors who plan ahead burn their conventional capacity on rentals first and finance the second home some other way.
INSIDER INSIGHT #2 — DSCR is not the only LLC option, but conventional NOO is never an LLC option.
If you want to close in an LLC for asset protection or anonymity, conventional NOO is off the table. Conventional Fannie / Freddie loans must vest in personal name. DSCR, bank-statement, foreign national, and portfolio loans all support LLC vesting (DSCR most commonly). Many investors run both: conventional in personal name for properties 1-10, DSCR in LLC after that.
INSIDER INSIGHT #3 — Reserves stack, and they are the silent killer of investor pre-approvals.
Most agency and DSCR programs require 6 months of PITIA reserves per financed property. So if you own 4 rentals at $2,500 PITIA each, you need $60,000 sitting in reserves before you buy the fifth. Investors fixate on down payment and forget reserves. Build the reserve cushion in parallel with the down payment, not after.
Quick FAQ
How is investment-property pricing different from owner-occupied?
Investment-property rates run roughly 0.50%–1.50% higher than the same borrower’s owner-occupied rate. Cash-out adds another 0.25%–0.50%. Lower credit, sub-1.00 DSCR, condotels, and short-term-rental use cases each add their own pricing layer. The good news: rates have to make sense against the rent the property pays you, not your salary.
Can rental income from the property I am buying count toward qualifying?
Yes — and how it counts depends on the loan. On conventional NOO, the appraiser fills out Form 1007 and 75% of the estimated market rent counts toward your income. On DSCR, the subject property’s rent is the entire qualification. On a 2-4 unit primary (house hack), 75% of the rent from the additional units counts as qualifying income.
I have great credit but heavy tax write-offs. Will I qualify?
Probably not on full-doc conventional — the bank reads your AGI, not your gross. But you have three other doors: DSCR (qualifies the property, not you), bank statement (uses your deposits), and asset depletion (uses your liquid assets as monthly income). Heavy-write-off investors are the exact reason these programs exist.
Can I close in an LLC?
On most investor products — yes. DSCR, bank-statement, asset depletion, foreign national, and portfolio loans all support LLC vesting. Conventional NOO is the one exception: agency rules require personal-name vesting.
Are short-term rentals (Airbnb / VRBO) financeable?
Yes, on DSCR. Most DSCR programs accept short-term-rental income — either via the conservative Form 1007 long-term market-rent estimate, or via an STR-specific appraisal addendum that prices off projected nightly rate × occupancy × 365. For first-time STR buyers, DSCR is the default.
How fast can an investor loan close?
Conventional NOO: 21-30 days under normal volume. DSCR: 18-25 days, often faster because there is no income documentation collection. Foreign national: 25-35 days due to international documentation. Portfolio: 30-45 days because of the bundled appraisal cycle.
Free Pre-Approval. Soft Credit Pull. Zero Hit to Your Score.
Before you make an offer, you need to know what the bank will actually back you on. A real pre-approval — not a quick online estimate — gives you the loan amount, the program, the rate range, and the monthly payment in writing. We pull a soft credit report (no impact to your score), review your income and reserves, and run the deal through underwriting logic so you walk into a property tour or a 1031 exchange knowing exactly what you can close on.
For investors, this matters double. Listing agents on rental properties take cash buyers and pre-approved investor offers seriously — everyone else gets passed over. Get the pre-approval first, then go shopping with leverage.
APPLY NOW — START YOUR PRE-APPROVAL
Have a scenario you want to talk through first? Reach out here.
Aleksandra Vasic — Mortgage Loan Originator, NMLS #2371030 | True Blue Lending NMLS #2380218 | Equal Housing Opportunity. This is not a commitment to lend. All loans subject to credit approval.