Twenty-one questions I get asked

Usually, yes — but only if something changes. A second application to the same programme with the same file gets the same answer. Tell me what the reason was, in the words they used, and I will tell you honestly whether a different route exists or whether the answer is wait six months.

Nothing. The first conversation costs you no paperwork at all. Tell me roughly what you earn, how you get paid and what you are trying to buy, and I can tell you which of the six routes is likely and roughly what each would cost you.

A broker is normally compensated either by the lender or by the borrower, and that is disclosed in writing on your loan estimate before you commit to anything. On a real engagement I would tell you which arrangement applies to your file before you send a single document. This is a demonstration site, so no fee, no rate and no offer here is real.

Same business day, and usually inside two hours on a weekday. That is the one advantage a one-person practice has over a call centre and I try not to waste it.

You often can, and if you can it is nearly always the cheapest loan available to you. The problem is that good tax planning and good loan applications pull in opposite directions: everything you legitimately deduct reduces the income a lender is allowed to count. If your returns work, we use them.

On a bank statement loan the lender does not know your costs, so it assumes them. It subtracts a fixed percentage from your deposits before calling the rest income. That percentage is the expense factor. It is set by programme and by industry, and it is the single number most worth arguing about on your file.

Twenty-four smooths out one bad quarter and helps a stable business. Twelve helps a business that has genuinely grown, because it drops the older, smaller months out of the average. We should look at both before choosing.

No. Transfers, refunds, loan proceeds, a vehicle you sold and money moved in from savings all get stripped out before anything is averaged. If a lot of your deposits are transfers, twelve months of statements can produce a much smaller number than you expect.

Yes. Your qualifying income is normally your ownership share of the eligible deposits, so a 40% owner counts 40%. Lenders want that share evidenced — an operating agreement, a CPA letter or a state filing.

Two years is the common bar. One year is possible in narrower cases, generally where the same line of work sits behind it — someone who was employed as an electrician for a decade and went out on their own last year is a very different file from a career change.

Because it is a non-QM product. The lender is taking documented income at a further remove and is priced for that. It is not a penalty for being self-employed; it is the price of a different underwriting method. If a conventional loan fits, take it.

No. Every rate, payment, ratio and timeline on this site is illustrative and exists to demonstrate the calculators. Nothing here is a quote, a lock, or an offer of credit. A real rate depends on your file, the property and the day.

Only if you are certain you are staying long enough to get the money back, and only after the same money has been compared against a larger down payment. Points are a break-even calculation like a refinance, and the arithmetic is the same: cost divided by monthly saving.

That is often the plan. Buy on a bank statement loan now, spend two years building returns that qualify, then refinance into a conventional loan. Say so at the start so we choose a loan without a prepayment penalty that would punish exactly that move.

The practice is built around Greater New Orleans — Orleans, Jefferson, St. Tammany, St. Bernard, St. Charles, Plaquemines, Tangipahoa and Lafourche parishes. Local knowledge on insurance and elevation matters more here than in most markets, and I would rather be useful in one region than vague across a state.

Because in this market it is frequently the number that decides the deal. A payment can be perfectly affordable at the rate you were quoted and unaffordable once the premium lands. On investment property it is often what fails the coverage ratio. Quote it early.

Indirectly, and strongly. Elevation drives the flood insurance premium, the premium drives the total payment, and the total payment drives the ratio a lender measures you against. Two houses at the same price can carry very different payments for this reason alone.

Sometimes, and it varies more between lenders than almost anything else. New Orleans licensing rules are specific and change; a lender that will count the income usually wants to see the licence and a documented history, not a projection.

It depends on the route and on how fast documents come back. The honest answer is that the part I control is fast and the part waiting on a third party is not. I will give you a real expectation for your file rather than a marketing number, and I would rather tell you a date you can plan around than an optimistic one.

Me. There is no team, no assigned coordinator and nobody who will call you and not know your file. That is the point of a one-person practice — and the honest cost of it is that when I am with another client you sometimes wait an hour.

A broker places loans with a panel of wholesale lenders and matches your file to the one whose guidelines fit it. On a real site this is where those lenders would be named. This demonstration names none of them, because naming a real lender as a partner of a practice that does not exist would be a false claim.