Self-employed and ready to buy a home?
The same write-offs that lower your tax bill can sink a mortgage application. A bank-statement loan looks at the money actually moving through your accounts instead of your adjusted tax-return income. Here's how it works, and who to talk to.
If you're self-employed, you already know the trade-off: you run every legitimate deduction you can to keep your taxable income down, and then a lender looks at that same low number and says you don't earn enough to buy a house. Your business is healthy. Your bank account proves it. The tax return just doesn't show it.
A bank-statement mortgage is built for exactly that situation. Instead of qualifying you on the income line of your tax return, the lender reviews your deposits — typically 12 to 24 months of bank statements — to estimate your real cash flow. For a lot of owners, that's the difference between "denied" and "approved."
What this particular program offers
One option we've come across for self-employed buyers comes from Daniel Bihn at The Bihn Group (PreferredRate). The highlights, straight from their program sheet:
- Down payment as low as 5%
- Minimum 660 FICO
- No mortgage insurance (MI)
- In-house underwriting
- Loan-to-value up to 90%
- Loan amounts up to $3.5 million
- Standard full-doc and self-employed bank-statement options
- Second-home, investment-property, and interest-only options
- Must be at least 2 years past a housing event (e.g. foreclosure)
Why we're sharing it
Helping contractors and self-employed owners get clean, honest books is what we do — and a clean set of books and bank statements is exactly what a program like this runs on. We hear the "my write-offs killed my mortgage" problem often enough that it's worth pointing people toward a path that's built for it.
No relationship, no kickback. Best Decision Bookkeeping is not affiliated with The Bihn Group or PreferredRate, receives no referral fee, and earns nothing if you reach out to them. We're sharing this as a helpful starting point, not an endorsement or a guarantee of any terms. Program details and rates come from the provider and can change — confirm everything with them directly. This is not financial, mortgage, tax, or legal advice; always do your own due diligence.
More resources for self-employed owners.
This is one of the outside resources we point owners toward. See the rest, and the standards behind why we share them.
For Self-Employed & OwnersWant your books mortgage-ready?
Clean books and clear bank statements make any financing conversation easier. We'll get yours there. 30-minute call, no pitch.