Split Loans Between Husband/Wife to Delay 10 Loan Cap?

[Thor M.]

Do any married couples put their investment property loans into only one person's name so that both people can each get 10 residential loans?  

[Chris Mason]

Yup, this is a thing.

• Doesn't work quite as well for FHA/VA/USDA financing in a community property state, which ours is. Works fine with fannie and most jumbo.
• Needs to be the loan AND TITLE or we may still have to hit the other spouse with the property tax bill when calculating DTI. "@Thor M., a married man, as his sole and separate property" is your new vesting.
• Get tight with a divorce and estate lawyer to figure out if you care about the "sole and separate property" part, and if so how much you care. (If your probability of divorce is 0% and you have wills already set up, you probably don't care at all, but IANAL)
• If you're going to make the switch, I'd want to do it one batch refinance with 7 or 9 or whatever simultaneous closings. Like ripping a band-aid off, it'll be painful but you're getting it over with and setting yourself up for the future. Bring some coffee to this signing...
• Obviously each spouse is qualifying 100% on their own. So you can use this trick OR the "shove all debt possible into the low-wage-earning spouse's name so one spouse's pre-mortgage DTI is 75% but the other one is at 8%," but not both.
• Make sure your lender is drilling down with you on your post-batch-refi DTI will be and giving you an idea of what you and your wife's purchasing power will be after the fact. You don't want to trade a property number cap for a DTI cap without realizing it.