Personally I never listen to what the seller states the income is as they are sometimes way off.

There’s huge retal income potential if you nail that balance between improvements that wow tenants and improvements that merely look fancy but don’t justify higher rents.I’d also keep an eye on how your high end plan fits the local demand.

Sterling,Each lender is different on how they calculate income and also what overlays they have that can cause a bad income calc. 

Nonetheless, I am not out to impugn anyone's intentions and I do understand (as Jay rightfully points out) that the self-employed (my situation for the past 20 years) especially run into times in their lives when conventional lending sources are of no use due to limited reportable income and other factors (such as when, for example, you retire in your 50's and begin to live off of your lines of credit, etc.). 

I also agree, that income is not a protected class.

The PM vets I know will all confirm that you lose much less by lowering your rate of (monthly) rent than by missing an entire month of income! 

My income doesn’t show itself as being very high, but I have a relatively large amount of cash to put down.

Well, apart from “if you give me $3000.”Luckily this is a co-living model through PadSplit so I have some income coming in.

Refi after construction.These numbers consider only the portion of costs of the HEL attributable to the land purchase, not the payoff of the HELOC (which we took out to buy the Seaside condo).Cash In:                     $66,166 (Cash, 1 year of debt service of HEL, debt service of const. loan, furnishing)Amount Financed:      $548,000 (home equity loan + construction loan + closing costs)Total Cost of build:     $614,166ARV:                               $850,000 (or rather "after construction value")Refi                                $637,500 (75% of value + closing costs)                                        Cash Out                       $89,500New payment             $4500/month (54,000/year)Estimated Cash Flow (pre-tax numbers, so actual mileage may vary)airBNB year 1:            $70,000     (net income $16,000)airBNB year 2:            $100,000   (net income $46,000)airBNB year3+:           $120,000   (net income $66,000)ROI (construction year):    0ROI Year 1 of STR:              24.2% ROI Year 2 of STR:              69.5% ROI Year 3+ of STR:            99.7% Did I calculate these ROI numbers right? 

The appeal of having a second source of income is very appealing and I would like to be able to build wealth outside of my W2 job.