I am borrowing 5,000 and paying 1,000 a month until I pay of.

@Kori Kelly, paying off debt to borrow it back at today's higher interest rates through a heloc doesn't make sense to me.

@Colin Caporal- mentioning your plan for  renters  wont make any difference  so  best to not mention it  ....rates  have  indeed  increased  making many borrowers  revise the  purchase price  that they  can buy .....you mention that some lenders  have  told you  400K ...is that the lender you are  working with ? 

If you have a high DTI you shouldn't be borrowing more money.

The amount of cash and commitment borrower had invested into this property.How did you find this deal and how did you negotiate it?

Also, shouldn't the lender approve the builder as well, prior to appove the loan to a borrower?

I didn't know I needed to move to Ohio to borrow money there!

@Kevin O'Bryan  When starting out I a;lways say borrow as much as you can for as long as you can at fixed interest rates. 

The job is really to problem solve your borrowers' deals all the way from appraisal to UW and closing.

In the 10+ years we've been house hacking, we've seen people hack a 200k condo to a 2mil dollar multifamily around Boston.Since the 08 recession, underwriting requirements have really tightened up so if you're looking for a "hard" ceiling for how much you could afford to borrow/purchase, a good lender will have an arsenal of metrics to make sure you qualify (ex.