POI for ReFi?

[Amelia Cooper]

I am running into an issue getting a HELOC on my primary. Although I have $300k+ equity, $2M in business assets, absolutely 0 debt except for my current mortgage, and a credit score so clean you could eat off of it, the lender is only qualifying me for $69K based on my income. This is strictly related to my taxes and what I pay myself as a dividend from my business and does not consider freelance or consulting or rental income from house hacking my extra rooms. Nor does it consider my retirement accounts, liquid accounts, or bank statements. For more context: my 2021 and 2020 tax returns are being used here, and I got divorced last year and my income shot up but my 2022 taxes haven't been filed yet.

Here's the question: I believe I can get hard or private money elsewhere. But, I'm very concerned if I do that, I will not be able to pay off the note with a refi a few months later, because if they look at the same criteria the HELOC lender is looking at, apparently, I could only get $69k.

For those of you who have done this before with less than I, how did you get your property refied to BRRRR after needing to use creative financing on your first deal?