Fontenot MortgageOdette Fontenot · Mortgage broker
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The loans

The maths

Odette

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When the tax returns do work

Conventional, self-employed

Sometimes the returns qualify you fine and nobody has bothered to add them up properly. That is the cheapest loan in the room and I will always check it first.

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01Who this is for
  • Owners with two consistent years of returns and real net profit
  • Anyone who has been told "self-employed means non-QM" without anyone doing the arithmetic
  • Businesses with big non-cash deductions — depreciation, depletion, amortisation — that get added back
02What it needs from you
  • Two years of personal returns, all schedules
  • Two years of business returns where the entity files separately
  • A year-to-date P&L and balance sheet where the fiscal year is well advanced
  • The usual asset statements and identification
03What it costs you — the honest part
  • It takes longer to prepare and there is far more paper.
  • A declining second year gets averaged down, or the lower year gets used outright.
  • A large one-off expense you took for tax reasons can cost you the loan. Timing matters.
04How a file like this moves

  1. Add the returns up properly

    Line by line, with the add-backs. Half the people who are told they do not qualify have never had this done.

  2. Compare against the bank statement route

    If conventional works it is nearly always cheaper. If it does not, we already have the statements ready.

  3. Decide before you file

    If you are close, what your preparer does with this year’s return changes what you can borrow next year.

Ask Odette

Tell me what you are working with

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The next step

One person reads this. That person is me.

Tell me roughly how you get paid and what you are trying to buy. No documents, no application, no credit pull to have the first conversation.

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