Travel Nurse Lending Options

[Walter Jimenez]

Hey everyone,

My significant other and I are travel nurses currently on contract renting in Redondo Beach California but we are originally from Tampa, Florida. We are complete newbies to real estate investing, but looking to make that next step toward our investment goals. I am currently enrolled in the BP rookie boot camp but have not gotten to the financing/lending portion yet. Wanted to see if anyone has any experience working with travel nurses and if there has been any trouble with getting approved for loans. We have heard so many different answers from many different people and wanted to post here and see if we could gain some more insight. Ideally, we would love to house hack and utilize an FHA loan to have extra cash in our pocket to rehab the property. Also would love to hear any advice someone has, in regard to getting started in investing especially in this economic climate. Thanks ahead of time!

[Mitch Davidson]

@Walter Jimenez. I can't help you with a loan in CA, but I have worked loans for travel nurses quite often. And my wife and mother have done some travel nursing as well. If you're working for an agency as a W-2, we could use the income for a conventional loan if you have been working as a travel nurse in a W-2 capacity for the last 24+ months. We would have to do a monthly pay average for 2023 YTD, as well as averages for 2022 and 2021. Then we would use the worst-case average of YTD and the 2-year history. Meaning, whichever combined average is lower, YTD, YTD&2022, or YTD&2022&2021. If you're 1099 instead, we could use the income for a conventional loan once you have a 2-year history, meaning we see something on Schedule C for your 2021 and 2022 returns (or 2020 and 2021 if you have a 2022 filing extension and close on the new home before the extension expires). For the 1099 income we would use the net profit (line 31) on Schedule C in your most recent 2 tax returns, add back a few write-offs like depreciation and business mileage, divide by 12 for each year, and then use the most recent one year's average or the average of the 2 years, whichever is lower. Hope this helps.