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DSCR Loans

Qualify on the property’s rental income — not your tax returns, not your W-2, not your debt-to-income ratio.

A DSCR loan is business-purpose financing for non-owner-occupied investment property. The lender underwrites the asset, not your paycheck. No 1040s. No employment verification. No DTI calculation.

Most lenders run one DSCR box and decline anything outside it. We’re a non-delegated correspondent — we underwrite in house, we make judgment calls, and we look at files case by case.

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DSCR from 0.70 · 600 FICO · Up to 85% LTV · $70K minimum · 1–10 units · FL · CO · GA · TX · IL
The Product

What is a DSCR loan?

A DSCR loan qualifies you on the property’s rental income instead of your personal income. DSCR stands for Debt Service Coverage Ratio — the property’s rent divided by its monthly obligation.

The Formula
DSCR = Monthly Rent ÷ Monthly PITIA
PITIA = principal, interest, taxes, insurance, and association dues.

A DSCR of 1.00 means the rent exactly covers the payment. Above 1.00, the property carries itself with room to spare. Below 1.00, it runs negative.

Most lenders stop at 1.00. We go to 0.70.

That means we can finance a property that doesn’t fully cover its own payment — because plenty of good deals don’t, especially in appreciating markets, and especially on a first purchase.

Guidelines

The Olympus DSCR box

Minimum DSCR0.70 — negative cash flow considered
Minimum FICO600
Maximum LTVUp to 85%
Minimum loan amount$70,000
Property typesSingle family · 2–4 units · 5–10 units · condo · non-warrantable condo · short-term rental
Experience requiredNone. First-time investors welcome.
Prior homeownershipNot required.
Prepayment penaltyZero-prepay option available. Terms customizable.
AmortizationFull amortization or interest-only
VestingLLC or individual
StatesFL · CO · GA · TX · IL

These are program minimums and maximums — not a single approval profile. Maximum LTV, minimum FICO, and minimum DSCR interact: the best terms in each row do not all apply to the same file. Send us the scenario and we’ll tell you exactly what yours supports.

These are the guidelines. They are not the whole story — see “When the box doesn’t fit” below.

The Differentiator

You don’t need to own a home to buy an investment property.

Most DSCR lenders require you to already own a primary residence. If you rent, or you live with family, you’re declined at the door — regardless of your credit, your reserves, or the quality of the deal.

We don’t require prior homeownership.

You can buy an investment property as your first-ever real estate purchase. You keep renting. The property is non-owner-occupied, it’s held for business purposes, and it qualifies on its own income.

For a lot of investors, this is the difference between starting now and starting in three years.

Case-by-Case Underwriting

When the box doesn’t fit

We’re a non-delegated correspondent lender. We underwrite DSCR files in house. That means we set our own overlays, we can look at a file on its merits, and we can request exceptions and consider them case by case — rather than reading a decline off a matrix.

Here’s what that actually looks like.

No lease? We can still qualify the rent.

A property with a vacant unit and no signed lease is an automatic decline at most lenders — there’s no rent to divide by.

We recently closed one. The unit was vacant, no rental agreement in place. We used the appraiser’s Form 1007 Single-Family Comparable Rent Schedule to establish market rent, and qualified the borrower on that.

The 1007 is standard appraisal work. Most lenders just won’t accept it in place of an executed lease.

Long-term rent doesn’t carry it? Add short-term rental income.

Another recent file: as a long-term rental, the property didn’t generate enough income. We could have funded it as negative cash flow — but there was a pricing implication for the borrower.

Instead, we ordered a short-term rental income appraisal alongside the 1007 and qualified on the STR income. Better ratio. Better outcome for the borrower.

Interest-only to clear the threshold.

If a file is close but the DSCR won’t quite clear, interest-only lowers the qualifying payment. Sometimes that’s the whole gap.

We use the highest credit score, not the lowest.

On most loan products, multiple borrowers means you’re underwritten on the lowest mid-score in the file.

On DSCR, we can use the highest. Adding a strong-credit co-borrower helps you here instead of being neutral.

A white multifamily building framed by palm trees under a clear sky

Deal Story · DSCR cash-out

A Cocoa Beach 4-plex, cashed out in 17 days — with zero tax returns.

A self-employed business owner and investor with several properties pulled cash out of a four-unit building in Cocoa Beach, Florida, and closed in 17 days. No tax returns. No personal income docs.

This was a DSCR cash-out refinance. DSCR loans qualify on the property, not the person — which matters for a business owner, whose tax returns are built to show less income, not more. We didn’t ask for them. We looked at what the four units bring in, and at a 1.0 DSCR the rents covered the payment on their own.

Start to close: 17 days. The borrower walked away with cash in pocket, ready to redeploy into the next property.

Four-plex deals like this work because a performing small multifamily carries its own loan on rental income alone. If your property produces, your tax return doesn’t have to enter the conversation.

Run your property’s numbers →

Olympus Financial, LLC · NMLS #2469800 · Equal Housing Lender

Comparison

DSCR vs. a conventional investment loan

DSCR loan Conventional investment loan
Qualifies onThe property’s rental incomeYour personal income
Tax returnsNot requiredRequired — typically two years
Employment verificationNot requiredRequired
Debt-to-income ratioNot calculatedCalculated, and it caps you
Number of financed propertiesNot a hard limiterOften capped
Vesting in an LLCStandardUsually not permitted
Credit reportingBusiness-purpose loans held in an entity typically do not report to personal credit*Reports to personal credit
Regulatory frameworkBusiness-purpose — outside TILA, RESPA/TRID, ATR/QMConsumer credit — full TILA/RESPA

* Credit reporting depends on the investor and how the loan is vested. Ask us about your specific scenario — we’ll tell you straight.

Why the last two rows matter more than they look:
If a DSCR loan doesn’t hit your personal credit report, it doesn’t consume your personal DTI. Your next conventional purchase — including a primary residence — isn’t crowded out by it. Investors who plan to scale should be thinking about this on loan number one, not loan number four.

Eligibility

This is business-purpose financing. Here’s what that means.

A DSCR loan is made for a business purpose — acquiring or refinancing income-producing property. It is not a consumer mortgage, and it works under a different set of rules.

What that gets you: no income documentation, no DTI cap, LLC vesting, and a far more flexible underwrite.

What it requires:

If you’re looking for a loan on a home you intend to live in, a DSCR loan is the wrong product — and we’ll tell you that rather than write it. We also do conventional, FHA, VA, jumbo, and bank-statement loans. Talk to us and we’ll point you at the right one.

Documents

What you’ll need

Short list. That’s the point.

FAQ

DSCR loan questions

Can I get a DSCR loan with negative cash flow?

Yes. We go down to a 0.70 DSCR, which means the property does not have to fully cover its own payment. Most lenders stop at 1.00.

Do I need to already own a home?

No. Most DSCR lenders require it. We don’t. You can buy an investment property as your first real estate purchase while you’re still renting.

Do I need real estate investing experience?

No. First-time investors are eligible.

Will a DSCR loan show up on my personal credit?

Often not — business-purpose loans held in an entity typically don’t report to personal credit. It depends on the investor and how the loan is vested. Ask us about your file specifically.

Can I use short-term rental (Airbnb) income?

Yes. We can order a short-term rental income appraisal and qualify on that income.

What if my property is vacant and has no lease?

We can use the appraiser’s Form 1007 rent schedule to establish market rent and qualify you on it.

Is there a prepayment penalty?

There’s a zero-prepayment-penalty option, and terms are customizable. Prepay structure affects pricing — we’ll show you the trade-off.

How fast can you close?

On a clean file, as little as ten days. See the Cocoa Beach 4-plex above for a real timeline.

Can I hold the property in an LLC?

Yes, and we’d generally recommend it.

What if my scenario doesn’t fit the guidelines?

Tell us anyway. We underwrite in house and we consider exceptions case by case. We can’t promise an approval — nobody honest can — but we can promise you a real answer from someone who actually reads the file.

Get started

Send us the scenario.

Tell us the property, the rent, and the credit score. We’ll tell you whether it works — and if it doesn’t fit the box, whether we can get it done anyway.

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