# How to Use Roommate & Rental Income to Qualify for a Mortgage

An episode of [Earn Your Leisure](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1450211392), 10 May 2026, 14 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/8dbc4f54-a337-4481-9ef2-b355012b0a3d/f74c3676-8d2d-4ae1-9823-b446013ca0af/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=eac4c628-29cb-469a-b5c8-b355012b0a48

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## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: If you have a swimming pool. I'm not sure if
[0:01] Speaker 1: you guys, have you ever heard her think called swimpleing.
[0:05] Speaker 2: No, is that when you rent the pool, you can
[0:08] Speaker 2: you can.
[0:08] Speaker 1: Rent your you can rent out your backyard, right, you
[0:11] Speaker 1: can run out your backyard, you can run out your pool.
[0:14] Speaker 1: Like I have one of my mentees. Every year she
[0:16] Speaker 1: rents out her backyard her pool here in New York, and.
[0:20] Speaker 3: It pays her mortgage for the year.
[0:23] Speaker 1: Like it's incredible, right because people treat that like an
[0:27] Speaker 1: event space for the day. Right, So you can have
[0:31] Speaker 1: somebody's backyard for eight to ten hours and you're paying
[0:34] Speaker 1: two three hundred dollars an hour.
[0:37] Speaker 3: For the full use of their backyard in the swimming pool.
[0:40] Speaker 1: So there's so many different ways to house hack and
[0:44] Speaker 1: generate money with a single family or a duplex to
[0:48] Speaker 1: make it more affordable. Now, also, here's another thing that
[0:53] Speaker 1: people don't really realize is that border income aka if
[0:58] Speaker 1: you have a roommate. What people don't know is Fannie
[1:01] Speaker 1: May will allow you to use this border income to
[1:05] Speaker 1: help you qualify for a mortgage under the Fannie Main
[1:09] Speaker 1: Home Ready program. Now, the requirement is the borrower must
[1:13] Speaker 1: have a history of receiving that rental income for at
[1:17] Speaker 1: least nine of the past twelve months, and you need
[1:21] Speaker 1: documentation such as your lease agreement and show proof or
[1:25] Speaker 1: receipt that your roommate has been paying you to or
[1:30] Speaker 1: since y'all live in an apartment together, and then you
[1:32] Speaker 1: can use that income to help you qualify for a mortgage.
[1:35] Speaker 1: So to break that down just in quick layman terms,
[1:38] Speaker 1: if you are living with someone right now and you
[1:41] Speaker 1: have a lease and they're on the lease with you,
[1:43] Speaker 1: if they're your bona fide roommate, not just someone who's
[1:46] Speaker 1: just in the house and you say, hey, they live here, no,
[1:49] Speaker 1: they have to be on your lease.
[1:51] Speaker 3: If you know you are.
[1:52] Speaker 1: In position to qualify for a mortgage faster than they are,
[1:57] Speaker 1: what you should do is collect the money portion of
[2:00] Speaker 1: the rent money from them, tell them to zeale it
[2:03] Speaker 1: to you, cash app it, whatever it is, and make
[2:07] Speaker 1: sure you put that is on the memo January's rent,
[2:11] Speaker 1: February's rent, March rent, right, so we can document it
[2:15] Speaker 1: that they've been paying you. And then you go ahead
[2:18] Speaker 1: and pay your landlord from your account. If you do
[2:22] Speaker 1: that nine months out of the past twelve, then when
[2:26] Speaker 1: you go qualify for your mortgage. You can use that
[2:30] Speaker 1: rental income to as part of your income to help
[2:34] Speaker 1: you qualify for your mortgage.
[2:36] Speaker 3: Y'all got why I'm going with this?
[2:38] Speaker 4: I see where you're going with this. Documentation is important.
[2:40] Speaker 4: Making sure you're keeping records is important, and that goes
[2:44] Speaker 4: if you're buying an individual home, but even more so
[2:47] Speaker 4: in this situation when you're trying to have investment property.
[2:49] Speaker 2: So you might you've unlocked something here.
[2:52] Speaker 5: Let's go back a little bit, all right, If you're
[2:57] Speaker 5: in a relationship with somebody, right, and we talk about
[3:01] Speaker 5: fifty to fifty a lot right on these different shows
[3:05] Speaker 5: and podcasts. But that's a real thing though, where somebody
[3:09] Speaker 5: lives with somebody and they're contributing. They're contributing to something,
[3:14] Speaker 5: but most of the time they're just giving a person money.
[3:16] Speaker 5: So it's usually either male or female. Somebody has a
[3:20] Speaker 5: lease in their name and they meet somebody and after
[3:23] Speaker 5: a while and then that person just kind of ends
[3:25] Speaker 5: up living with that person. They may not never be
[3:28] Speaker 5: on the lease, correct, And they're contributing financially on a
[3:31] Speaker 5: certain level, but there's no real documented record of them
[3:36] Speaker 5: contributing financially.
[3:37] Speaker 3: Correct.
[3:38] Speaker 5: You're saying that boyfriend, girlfriend, whatever, you're living with somebody,
[3:44] Speaker 5: that should be something that's documented. Because if it is documented,
[3:49] Speaker 5: then what is it called?
[3:50] Speaker 3: So it's border income. Right.
[3:53] Speaker 1: So if in that same situation you have the girlfriend,
[3:57] Speaker 1: let's just say the boyfriend and the girlfriend moves right.
[4:01] Speaker 1: Let's say that situation the lease is in a boyfriend's name.
[4:04] Speaker 1: But y'all splitting it fifty to fifty. As Rashad said,
[4:08] Speaker 1: the girlfriend is not on the lease. Boyfriend is in
[4:13] Speaker 1: position a year from now he wants to go buy
[4:15] Speaker 1: a house for them to live in.
[4:18] Speaker 3: He should now put her on the lease of the apartment.
[4:23] Speaker 1: And then now when she's making that contribution, don't make
[4:26] Speaker 1: it on make a cash she should sell him a
[4:30] Speaker 1: wire transfer, a cash app put on the memo it's
[4:35] Speaker 1: for her portion of the rent as long as we
[4:38] Speaker 1: have that document nine out of twelve months. And then
[4:42] Speaker 1: now the boyfriend goes to get pre approved and says that, hey,
[4:46] Speaker 1: this is my roommate. She is going to live in
[4:50] Speaker 1: the house with me. Now, from a lending perspective, I
[4:55] Speaker 1: can use the portion of that rental income that she's paying.
[4:59] Speaker 3: Let's just say it's one thousand dollars a month.
[5:01] Speaker 4: I was gonna say clean, clean number one thousand dollars
[5:03] Speaker 4: a month right week on the member, I'm putting five
[5:06] Speaker 4: hundred dollars in toward that. At the end of the year.
[5:09] Speaker 4: Let's say it's the twelve months. Now it's an additional
[5:11] Speaker 4: six thousand dollars that you have an income.
[5:13] Speaker 1: Correct, that's now is going to be used for the
[5:16] Speaker 1: boyfriend doing his prey approval to help them qualify for.
[5:20] Speaker 3: More of a house.
[5:23] Speaker 1: It's a clean way of qualifying with using this roommate
[5:31] Speaker 1: income because your roommates. Right at the end of the day,
[5:35] Speaker 1: you're not legally married. You know, you're technically single in
[5:39] Speaker 1: the eyes of the law. Boyfriend and girlfriend is not
[5:43] Speaker 1: a mattertal status, right status either, last time I checked.
[5:48] Speaker 1: So you're legally single.
[5:50] Speaker 3: This is your roommate.
[5:51] Speaker 1: So if you do it that way, now that rental
[5:54] Speaker 1: income can now be used to help qualify for a mortgage. Now,
[5:59] Speaker 1: I know some people are going to say, why won't
[6:02] Speaker 1: she just go on the.
[6:02] Speaker 3: Mortgage with him this Now we talk about divide and conquer.
[6:08] Speaker 1: Let's just say now they move into this house, they
[6:11] Speaker 1: get approved, and they wind up separating. Right now, she
[6:17] Speaker 1: doesn't have a mortgage in her name. She can still
[6:20] Speaker 1: go out here and buy a duplex, a single family
[6:24] Speaker 1: and house hack her life away as well. So, just
[6:28] Speaker 1: depending on your circumstances in your situation, if you understand
[6:32] Speaker 1: real estate financing and these programs that are out there,
[6:35] Speaker 1: and if you set your documentation up the right way,
[6:38] Speaker 1: you can really go out here and scale at a
[6:42] Speaker 1: very high level and reap all the benefits of wealth
[6:45] Speaker 1: building with real estate.
[6:47] Speaker 3: If you know exactly what you do.
[6:49] Speaker 2: That's a very vital playman. I never heard that. I'm
[6:52] Speaker 2: glad you brote that down before.
[6:54] Speaker 5: It doesn't have to be boyfriend girlfriend either, because there's
[6:56] Speaker 5: a lot of scenarioho somebody lives with somebody.
[6:58] Speaker 3: It could just be.
[7:00] Speaker 2: Roommates, or it could be could it be parent child.
[7:03] Speaker 3: No, it can't be parent a child. Right, But let's
[7:07] Speaker 3: think about college roommates. Think about what's just happened to
[7:09] Speaker 3: manage you?
[7:10] Speaker 1: And we have all these college graduates, right, most of
[7:13] Speaker 1: them have what roommates for the majority. So, first of all,
[7:18] Speaker 1: if you just graduated college, congratulations, right, But did you
[7:21] Speaker 1: know that you can use your your college education as
[7:26] Speaker 1: your work history. You don't need a two year job history.
[7:28] Speaker 1: You can use your college history as work history. Did
[7:32] Speaker 1: you guys know that?
[7:34] Speaker 2: So see that again.
[7:35] Speaker 1: So you just graduated from college. You did your undergrad
[7:38] Speaker 1: right four years. You're twenty two years old. You're graduating.
[7:42] Speaker 1: You just got a job offer from you know, Earn
[7:46] Speaker 1: your Leisure Entertainment, and you're going to start and you're
[7:49] Speaker 1: going to be the marketing manager. You're making a base
[7:51] Speaker 1: salary at one hundred thousand dollars, and you have an
[7:53] Speaker 1: awful letter from Earn your Leisure Entertainment to start August.
[7:57] Speaker 3: First.
[7:58] Speaker 1: You don't need to work at Earn your Entertainment for
[8:01] Speaker 1: two years. You have your college history for four years.
[8:05] Speaker 1: That's your work history. You can now present that offer
[8:08] Speaker 1: letter in your first past up and you can buy
[8:11] Speaker 1: a house immediately, so.
[8:15] Speaker 2: You can use college as work experience.
[8:16] Speaker 3: Absolutely has that always been the case? Absolutely? Absolutely right?
[8:27] Speaker 1: And now if you freak it, you got that college
[8:31] Speaker 1: history four years, you got your degree.
[8:34] Speaker 3: But during college you have.
[8:37] Speaker 1: A single family home that you was renting out and
[8:40] Speaker 1: now your roommate is on the lease. If you do
[8:43] Speaker 1: what we just said with the boyfriend and girlfriend scenario,
[8:46] Speaker 1: now your roommate starts paying you, and you know you
[8:48] Speaker 1: have a better chance of getting the house faster than
[8:52] Speaker 1: them have them pay you. Now, first of all, everybody
[8:55] Speaker 1: got to be on the same page with this, right,
[8:58] Speaker 1: everybody got to be a team effort here. So now
[9:01] Speaker 1: they pay you instead of paying their portion of the rank,
[9:04] Speaker 1: you pay the landlord. And now you can use that border.
[9:07] Speaker 1: Not only can use the offer letter from earn your
[9:09] Speaker 1: Leisure Entertainment, you can also use that roommate income to
[9:13] Speaker 1: help you qualify because now that roommate is going to
[9:16] Speaker 1: move into your house with you as well continue to
[9:18] Speaker 1: be a roommate.
[9:20] Speaker 4: And that offer letter is kind of one of those
[9:23] Speaker 4: things that you kind of need to have in order
[9:25] Speaker 4: this work.
[9:26] Speaker 1: You can't just go we needed to We need to
[9:28] Speaker 1: show that you got a job, right, right, We need
[9:31] Speaker 1: to show that you have a job. And it's a
[9:33] Speaker 1: start date and you can go ahead and get pre approved,
[9:38] Speaker 1: but one of the pre approval conditions is going to be, hey,
[9:42] Speaker 1: when you get into contract, we need to know that
[9:44] Speaker 1: you're working. Now, we need to see pay stubs from
[9:48] Speaker 1: earn your Leisure Entertainment. As we're using that example to
[9:53] Speaker 1: show those pay stubs, so that way now and it
[9:56] Speaker 1: matches up with the income from the offer letter, then boom,
[10:00] Speaker 1: you use that as long as your credits go your
[10:02] Speaker 1: DTI works.
[10:04] Speaker 3: You don't have to wait two years to qualify.
[10:08] Speaker 4: Yeah, that's a good hack because there's plenty of college
[10:10] Speaker 4: students who there's three roommates, but this is the one
[10:13] Speaker 4: person who gets the lease.
[10:14] Speaker 2: Right.
[10:14] Speaker 4: If that person now looks at those two and that
[10:16] Speaker 4: you've just seen it for one roommate, yeah, potentially that
[10:19] Speaker 4: could be two or three roommates that are paying them
[10:21] Speaker 4: to that documentation port, it becomes even more important exactly.
[10:24] Speaker 1: But the key is everybody has to be on the lease, right,
[10:28] Speaker 1: Everyone has to pay you, and then everyone has to
[10:32] Speaker 1: be moving into your house because now it's border income
[10:36] Speaker 1: roommate income, and we're using that to help qualify. So
[10:39] Speaker 1: it needs to sustain to the new house, right. The key,
[10:44] Speaker 1: So if everybody's on the same page, this could be
[10:47] Speaker 1: a home run. But here's how we even go a
[10:49] Speaker 1: little bit deeper with this pause. If you buy a
[10:52] Speaker 1: home that has an a DU an accessory dwelling unit
[10:58] Speaker 1: on it, right, everybody type eight chat.
[11:01] Speaker 3: If you have an.
[11:01] Speaker 1: ADU, you can use rental income from an ADU and it.
[11:08] Speaker 3: Can help you qualify.
[11:10] Speaker 1: So let's just say, for example, you don't have the roommates,
[11:13] Speaker 1: you live by yourself, but you just graduated college and
[11:17] Speaker 1: you want to use that college degree hack, right, but
[11:21] Speaker 1: you might be short with rent with income to qualify,
[11:26] Speaker 1: you find a house that has an ADU, and we
[11:29] Speaker 1: can use that rental income from the ADU to help
[11:33] Speaker 1: you qualify as well. And when you get into the ADU,
[11:40] Speaker 1: now we're going to use long term rental income to
[11:42] Speaker 1: help you qualify. But that does not mean you have
[11:45] Speaker 1: to have a long term tenant. You can now turn
[11:48] Speaker 1: that ADU into an Airbnb, play vrbo, you can make
[11:53] Speaker 1: it a content studio. There's so many different things you
[11:56] Speaker 1: can You can target mid term renters like traveling nurses,
[12:02] Speaker 1: like flight attendants, like depending on where city you live,
[12:05] Speaker 1: So if you live close to airports, you live close
[12:07] Speaker 1: to hospitals, right, you should be targeting homes that are
[12:11] Speaker 1: close to in proximity to these areas. Because the midterm
[12:15] Speaker 1: rental and come from corporations. Right, You have people who
[12:19] Speaker 1: travel for corporations. They may need someone to stay for
[12:22] Speaker 1: six weeks because they're doing a corporate project in a
[12:24] Speaker 1: certain city. Think about what's happening and guys, I'm gonna
[12:28] Speaker 1: tell you another hack. And I've talked about this on
[12:30] Speaker 1: my program, and I know you guys talked about Look
[12:32] Speaker 1: at all the AI data centers that's being invested and
[12:35] Speaker 1: built all around the country, right, you got Texas. I
[12:38] Speaker 1: think there was two or three half a billion dollar
[12:41] Speaker 1: projects that was launched this year. Think about it. These
[12:46] Speaker 1: people are not the people who are constructing this. They're
[12:49] Speaker 1: not going to be long term residents of Texas, right.
[12:54] Speaker 1: They're probably coming in from all different parts of walker life.
[12:56] Speaker 3: So what do they need rentals?
[12:59] Speaker 1: They might only be out there to do a job
[13:01] Speaker 1: that's gonna take six months, So what do they need
[13:04] Speaker 1: a mid term into. They don't want to sign a
[13:06] Speaker 1: year least or a two year least. They may need
[13:07] Speaker 1: only a six monthly eight month least, and it's gonna
[13:10] Speaker 1: be cheaper than the corporation is putting them into a hotel.
[13:14] Speaker 1: Because that daily rated a hotel. That shit gonna add up,
[13:17] Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. So you got to really
[13:20] Speaker 1: take the current events and everything that's happening. I know
[13:23] Speaker 1: you guys talk about it at scale on Market Mondays.
[13:27] Speaker 1: That's why you need to tap in every Monday eight
[13:29] Speaker 1: pm Eastern Standard time to see what is moving and
[13:32] Speaker 1: shaken because all of these moves that's happening in AI,
[13:36] Speaker 1: those are also real estate plays too, if you're paying attention,

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