HELOC issues (home paid off, too many rental properties )

[Steven W.]

So interesting story and something I never thought would happen but I can't see to get a HELOC now even though I have zero personal debt and W2 income.

As a business strategy in previous years or the low interest glory days I would purchase a property under my personal name and then transfer it to LLC (owner by myself and real estate partner). We've been doing this for many years and have accumulated a pretty large sum of properties to the point we had to go to private / commercial lenders during more recent years.

Anyways I recently purchased a new primary home (had zero issues getting the loan) and sold my old primary home, used the proceeds to pay off my property. I had a HELOC on my old property so assumed I could go to the same lender and move forward.

They told me that because I had mortgages on my personal credit report yet I was reporting them through my business tax return, that they would have to calculate the full debt of my loans and could not utilize the business tax returns to back out depreciation and other expenses which are typical.

This basically put me at a 60% DTI and made it so I didn't qualify to get a HELOC on my personal property.

So 1st question is….am I screwed on trying to get a HELOC? And if not….

2nd question is…what lenders out there understand rental properties and how they are supposed to be calculated based on DTI (Fannie 1038) that could help me?

Thanks!