Primary residence loan questions

[Josiah Collins]

Hey everyone!

So my wife and I are currently under contract in a home that’s going to be our primary residence. We got preapproved to buy are new home without making it contingent upon selling our current home. We are planning to sell it as soon as we move out, but we wanted to make our offer stronger and not have to worry about the timing of selling one then moving into the other.

Now that we are actually under contract, the lender is saying there are concerns because of a commercial rental property that we own. The gross rents on the rental are currently about $5200/month and the mortgage is $2390/month. It is a commercial loan. From everyone’s experience, should this really be a factor? He had already preapproved us knowing about this property and our current income etc.

Our current DTI is pretty low and even if we added the new mortgage along with our current home's mortgage, but not factoring in income or mortgage from the rental, our debt would be about 37% of gross.

Any thoughts? We are only 4 days in our 30 days, so I could potentially switch lenders still. Just wanted to get some opinions from everyone here. Thanks!

[Ruth Lyons]

Thanks for the question and answers. I haven't run into this particular issue personally, but I learned something I didn't know reading this! I have learned that it's important to choose a lender who understands investors. The run-of-the-mill loan officer doesn't have the experience to understand investor goals and advocate for us. I had an experience where I was doing a refinance and the property was owned by my LLC. It wasn't until the last minute that the loan officer told me that we needed to dissolve my LLC and re-title the property in my name for the loan to get approved. I did in order To get cash quickly for another deal I was in the middle of, however that messed me up on other aspects of my business. A more seasoned loan officer who understands the needs of investors would've picked this up earlier in the process.