Help me figure out why we can’t qualify for a loan.

[Ashley Wallace]

My husband and I own our house outright. We have a HELOC on the house with an available line of $330K. We have $120K drawn from it right now. We also an investment property under contract to be sold for $815K. We owe $385K on the investment property. We Airbnb the investment property more than paying for the expensive. Last year we cleared about $1100 a month on it. We are trying to get a pre-approval letter from a bank so that we can build a house. Total cost of that would be $580K. My husband makes $114K annually and I run the Airbnb. We owe about $9000 on one of our cars. We have tried to get a pre-approval letter with several banks and they all are saying we must sell our primary first. Why can't we get a pre-approval letter? Are we just dealing with the wrong banks? Is there something that we are doing wrong in the way we are operating? We are super frustrated and would love some help!