SBC
Under The Fiirm's SBC program, a land contract or contract for deed on a commercial property is an allowed structure, and paying off the seller is underwritten as a refinance rather than a purchase — as long as the contract is more than twelve months old. That classification is what lets your loan be sized against today's appraised value instead of the price you agreed to years ago. Below twelve months, the guideline does not say what the transaction becomes instead, and cost basis comes into play. This page covers the classification line, the value basis, the seasoning provision, and exactly where the guideline is silent.
August 31, 2026
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A DSCR refinance becomes a cash-out refinance when the borrower receives net proceeds exceeding 10% of the loan amount. Below that line it is rate and term. The classification is computed at final underwriting, not elected on the application, which is why borrowers find out late. This page shows what counts toward the threshold, what trips a file over it, and exactly what reclassification costs in LTV, proceeds and coverage.
August 31, 2026
Read the guide →DSCR
On The Fiirm's DSCR program, a purchase is treated as a flip when your contract price exceeds the seller's acquisition price by more than 10% and the seller acquired the property 90 or fewer days before your contract date, or by more than 20% when they acquired it 91-180 days before. If either test is met, a second appraisal is required and seven other conditions attach. This page gives you the exact thresholds, what else the file will ask for, and how to check a rehabbed house before you sign.
August 31, 2026
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Exercising an option to purchase is underwritten as a purchase transaction, with the injection sized off the purchase price. Accumulated rent credits may count as evidence of that injection, but only with a lease agreement stating the credited amount and cancelled checks proving payment. Base rent gets checked against market, and rent credits count toward injection but never toward reserves.
August 31, 2026
Read the guide →DSCR
A lender adds renovation money to your cost basis only if it was a capital improvement, only if you paid for it yourself, and only if you can produce paid invoices. Demolition, debris removal, fixing lights and outlets, and carpet removal are named in the guidelines as not CAPEX. Financed work does not count — on the commercial program that prohibition is written out in so many words. And past six months on DSCR, the whole test usually stops applying.
August 31, 2026
Read the guide →DSCR
On a DSCR rate-and-term refinance of a 1-4 unit rental owned three to six months, value defaults to the lower of cost basis or the appraisal. If your documented cost basis is at least 120% of the purchase price, the appraised value can be used for LTV instead — with the loan amount capped at cost basis. Past six months of ownership, appraised value governs and the test does not apply. This page shows the build-up, the CAPEX exclusions, and the arithmetic both ways.
August 31, 2026
Read the guide →DSCR
You bought the rental with cash and want the capital back. On The Fiirm's DSCR program for 1-4 unit investment property, delayed financing does that if the purchase closed within six months of loan approval or the Note date, no financing was used, and the prior sale was arm's length. The recoverable amount is capped at purchase price plus the closing costs you paid at acquisition, not at the appraised value. It prices as a rate-and-term refinance.
August 31, 2026
Read the guide →DSCR
Cash-out proceeds on a DSCR loan from The Fiirm are uncapped at or below 65% LTV, and capped at $1,000,000 once LTV exceeds 65%. That dollar ceiling is only one of two constraints — the maximum cash-out LTV off the eligibility grid is the other, and which one binds changes with the deal. This page works both, plus the FICO and property-type interactions and what the proceeds may actually be used for.
August 31, 2026
Read the guide →DSCR
Our DSCR program will consider a cash-out refinance on a 1-4 unit rental you bought less than six months ago. What changes with seasoning is which number counts as value. Owned at least 3 months and up to 6, we use the lower of cost basis or appraised value; past 6 months, the appraisal governs. Under 3 months, the guidelines publish no cash-out tier at all.
August 31, 2026
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Six months of liquid reserves, measured in months of the qualifying principal-and-interest payment on the subject property — not a flat dollar figure. That means the requirement scales with your loan. Retirement accounts count at 70% of balance, gift funds do not count at all, and cash-out proceeds can satisfy reserves outright if the deal FICO is above 700.
August 31, 2026
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No. Foreign nationals, applicants on temporary status or a work visa, and irrevocable trusts are all ineligible on our small-balance commercial program. Eligible borrowers are for-profit US entities wholly owned by US citizens or permanent resident aliens, and of the trust family only a revocable trust qualifies. This page walks the entity and guarantor tests in the order underwriting applies them, including the layered-ownership rule that kills most structures and the New York and New Jersey restrictions.
August 31, 2026
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Owner Occupied means your business, your residence, or an entity you majority own or control uses 50% or more of the property's net rentable area. Investor means at least 50% of effective gross income comes from arm's-length third-party tenants — or the property is a type that is always Investor. The classification decides your coverage test, your experience standard, and your document list. Underwriting can also reclassify a property against the borrower's expectation.
August 31, 2026
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Global Debt Service Coverage blends the operating business, the subject property, and the guarantor personally into one ratio. Owner-occupied files need 1.20x, and since July 10, 2026 only 50% of total annual personal debt is counted against you. Here is the formula, what income is included and excluded, a worked file showing how the numbers assemble, and what happens when a deal misses coverage.
August 31, 2026
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Almost never, for most small-balance borrowers. Every property we lend against gets a database-level Environmental Transaction Screen that we order ourselves. A full Phase I is the escalation, and the only place our guidelines name it as a possible requirement on a defined group of loans is No Doc Streamline files with a DSCR below 1.15x — and even there the language is discretionary, not mandatory.
August 31, 2026
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Yes, there is an experience requirement on investor property, and it is lower than most first-time buyers assume: owning one property, including your own home, for at least 12 months makes you eligible at up to 70% LTV. Getting to the program maximum LTV takes more. Owner-occupied deals are graded on business experience instead, and partial owner-occupied investor properties are exempt from the investor experience requirement entirely.
August 31, 2026
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This is a mortgage on the building, not a business loan. Restaurant, bar and daycare properties require the operating business to show three years of continuous operating history before the file is eligible at all, and full program leverage does not arrive until five years. Restaurants and bars also carry a refinance-first rule that limits when you can purchase, and the appraisal values the real estate only with no credit for goodwill, inventory or equipment.
August 31, 2026
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You can cash out of a commercial property owned for less than a year. Under twelve months of ownership, seasoning does not block the loan — it changes how the maximum is calculated and how much you have to prove. Our program may size the loan against your cost basis rather than the appraisal unless you can document the acquisition, a 15 to 20 percent capital investment at purchase, and unfinanced capital expenditure supporting the higher value.
August 31, 2026
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Most commercial financing content lists what lenders will finance. The more useful list is the other one. Some property types are declined on collateral alone, before credit, income or DSCR is read — and a handful of them become financeable through a specific exception most borrowers never hear about. Here is the actual line, and the four rules that cap leverage on properties that clear it.
August 31, 2026
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Yes, with a precise limit. Deposits from Cash App Business, Venmo Business and similar payment platforms can count as business revenue when they land in your business operating account and you can document where they came from. What cannot be used is a personal Venmo or Cash App statement standing in for a business bank statement. The distinction decides whether a file works.
August 31, 2026
Read the guide →DSCR
The lowest DSCR we will actually accept on a 1-4 unit investor loan is 0.75x, and only on a single-property loan for an experienced investor on an occupied property. For most files the real floor is 1.00x, and overlays for small loan amounts, short-term rentals and interest-only push it to 1.10x or 1.25x. The floor is an output of the file, not a headline number.
December 31, 2025
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