A commercial lender's "DTI" is DSCR (Debt Service Coverage Ratio) - which looks at the ratio of a properties NOI vs the annual debt service you'll be responsible for. 

My personal debt and passive income.Anyone can do this.

@Rob Shah with any sort of debt on the property you will probably struggle to locate that type of cash flow per unit. 

In my rental world, there's a significant difference in someone not being able to pay off a medical debt that is dragging their credit score down versus their defaulting on their Citibank Visa versus a landlord judgment.

@John Underwood forgive my ignorance.

For a borrowers like my husband and I with a seemingly simpler situation (looking for primary home not an investment property, no debt except for our current mortgage, excellent credit and low DTI <10%), we were thinking we'd have more options to shop lenders/rates. 

As @Frank Jiang said, maybe a few employees working for the institutional players, working a hundred hours a week so they can have a nice salary and upper-middle-class lifestyle funded largely by debt and overspending, but actual people who actually salt away the wealth?

@Kenny Bledsoe First thing is to try to pay off other debt particularly high interest debt such as credit cards.

Con. placing your name to extra debt.

Hard money is short term debt at 8-12% interest and a few points.