How do you SFH/townhouse househackers manage to secure your second property??

[Joseph Wobus]

After living in my househack for about a year, I am currently looking to purchase househack #2 and move into that one.  However, financing has been much harder this time around because banks cant seem to recognize the "rent-by-the-room" strategy when evaluating my debt/income.  More specifically, I am currently bringing in $3750/mo in rental income (mortgage payment is $3300 so I am more than in the clear).  I plan to continue renting by the room in my 4br house, so I expect this income to jump up to around $5000/month after including my own room (I live in a HCOL area).

The problem is banks cant seem to recognize this strategy and count that income as income towards my liabilities.  They only recognize rental income as an entire property.  So even though I am easily bringing in $5k/month with my rent-by-the-room strategy, banks/lenders can only count about $3000-3300 since thats the average rent for an entire house in my area.  This greatly hurts my financing and has made it so that I can't "afford" most of the houses in my area even though in actuality I more than can.  Even my lender understands and recognizes my situation but they are held back by strict underwriting policies.

So my question is, how did you guys do it?  Whats the best strategy with this situation?

[Caleb Brown]

I don't know if there's a way around that on financing. Can you work more to make up for the difference? You need more income to offset the debt you have. Is there any debt you can pay off to help too? Room by room is a great strategy but for underwriters they take the long term rent of a property.