Start with whether a conventional loan fits
Fannie Mae buys loans to non-U.S. citizens who are lawful permanent residents or lawful non-permanent residents on the same terms as loans to citizens.1 If you hold a green card, or a visa and work authorization that establish lawful residency, a conventional loan may well be the right loan, with the same down payments and pricing anyone else gets. That is the first thing we check.
When it doesn’t
If you file taxes with an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number rather than a Social Security number, or your status does not fit the agency definitions, the answer moves to a non-QM lender. The lenders we use offer programs for:
- ITIN borrowers — qualifying with an ITIN and your tax filings.
- DACA recipients.
- Non-permanent residents whose visa or documentation falls outside agency rules.
These programs usually want a larger down payment than an agency loan, and the rate is higher. But they are real mortgages, fully underwritten, and many of them work with the same bank statement or 1099 income a self-employed citizen would use.
Thin credit is not the end of it
A lot of ITIN borrowers and recent arrivals have little U.S. credit history. Some of the programs we use require no minimum number of credit accounts, and some will consider a borrower with no credit score at all, using rent and other payment history instead. A documented history of paying rent on time, even to a private landlord, can count.
What to have ready
- Your ITIN letter, or your immigration and work authorization documents.
- Two years of tax returns filed under your ITIN or SSN, or the income documents for a bank statement or 1099 program.
- Proof of rent paid: cancelled checks or bank records, not only a letter.
- Records of where the down payment came from, including any gift.
Sources
These references support the factual explanations above. Where this page states a preference rather than a fact, it says so — those are our editorial judgement, not a claim that any one channel always costs less.
Next
Non-QM: what it is, and what it is notNot a subprime loan and not a no-documentation loan. A different way of proving the same thing.Self-employed: bank statements, P&L or 1099When your tax returns tell the IRS one story and the lender needs to hear another.Bring us the file that doesn’t fit
Tax returns that undersell you, a rental portfolio, an ITIN, a thin credit file. Tell us what you have. We will look at whether a conventional loan works before we look at a non-QM one, and tell you plainly which is cheaper.