Debt to Income Ration - Help

[Alex Salzman]

Hi Everyone!

 My current situation is that I am living in Denver, renting a house here with my girlfriend, and am trying to purchase my first rental property in my home town of Ohio (cleveland or akron area to be specific).  There are a few reasons for this strategy but its mainly dictated by the house affordability in Ohio as compared to Denver combined with me having long time family friends (realtor and property manager) in the Ohio real estate market.

I just got pre-approved and unfortunately am approved for much lower than I was hoping. After speaking with my lender about the details he basically explained that the fact that I have to declare my full Denver rent of $1700 a month is whats hurting my DTI significantly. In reality I only pay half of this ($850) but the way our current lease is structured I am being told I have to declare the full $1700 as debt.

I am curious if others on here have faced similar situations where you were currently renting but wanting to purchase a home for investment purposes and not to live in it.  What are ways to make this work?  

Do I have to show copies of my current lease as "proof of debt"?  Or will a lender simply look at my bank statements and see that $850 (half of my full rent) gets withdrawn every month?   

Also, my current rental lease is month to month.  Does a lender actually consider a month to month lease as debt?  I would think this would fall under the same category as groceries, utilities, etc. where its not truly a long term debt to someone.  In reality, I would never pay $1700 in rent, if that were to ever be the situation I would simply leave immediately to find more affordable housing, no debts owed.  

Super excited to get my first property!  Just want to intelligently deal with this little hiccup at the moment.  

Any wisdom and guidance is much appreciate everyone!

-Alex