A term sheet within 24 hours
A term sheet within 24 hours holds because the intake questions are fixed. The timeline does not wait on a borrower assembling a document package, because on a DSCR file there is no package to assemble. It waits on five facts about the property, and those five facts are usually already sitting in the broker's inbox.
Where a file stalls at intake, it is almost always one of the five that is missing or estimated. Sending them together is the difference between a term sheet tomorrow and a term sheet next week.
What the file needs on day one
- Property address and type. Single-family, multifamily, condo, or short-term rental. Condo files should flag warrantability early.
- Gross monthly rent. In place where there is a lease, market where there is not.
- Taxes, insurance, and any HOA dues. Actual figures. An estimated insurance premium is the single most common reason a ratio moves between term sheet and underwriting.
- Purchase price or current value, and the loan amount sought.
- The entity that will hold title. Including the members, where the entity has more than one.
No tax returns. No W2s. No personal income documentation of any kind.
Gross rent over PITI
The calculation is gross rent divided by principal, interest, taxes, and insurance. The floor is 1.0x, which means the property carries its own debt service, taxes, and insurance with nothing short.
Because the ratio is built from four inputs, it moves when any one of them moves. That is worth knowing at intake rather than at underwriting, and it is the reason the insurance figure matters as much as the rent figure.
Appraisal and title open the same day
The appraisal is ordered and title is opened on day one, alongside underwriting rather than after it. Sequencing the three in parallel instead of in series is most of the reason the average close lands at 21 days.
It also means the third-party timelines are running while the file is still in underwriting, so a title issue surfaces in week one, when there is still room to solve it.
WHERE FILES GET COMPLICATED
Entities, condos, and new construction
Complex multi-member entities close without seasoning. Non-warrantable condos are a standard product here rather than an exception. On new construction, underwriting uses stabilized market rents, so a property with no rental history still has a number to work from.
The product set covers DSCR on single-family and portfolio, short-term rental, non-warrantable condo, multifamily, Class-A bank statement, and hybrid DSCR plus bank statement. Prepay comes as step-down, commonly 5-4-3-2-1, or fixed, commonly three years.
Call at intake
Brokers who send the five facts when the deal first crosses their desk get terms back inside a day, and they get them before the borrower has committed to a structure that will need unwinding later. Brokers who call after another lender has declined the file are solving a harder problem with less time.
The five facts are the whole ask. Everything after that is ours.
