HELOC requirements · 2026
HELOC requirements: what you actually need to qualify
Every HELOC file comes down to six qualifiers: your equity, your credit, how you prove income, your reserves, how long you’ve owned the property, and the property type.
Meet them on a full-doc program and you can reach up to 90% CLTV at a 640 score. On our alternative-documentation programs, plan on 680+ and a 60%–80% line — with no tax returns required.
Here’s the honest part most requirements pages skip: you rarely need to clear all six by a wide margin. Usually just one is holding your file back — and our whole job is finding which one, then structuring around it. Below is every threshold in one place, and how we work with each.
Edited by: Marcos Zambrano, President & Owner NMLS #988935 · Andes Mortgage LLC NMLS #2187991 · Updated July 21, 2026
The six checks behind every HELOC
This is the framework we run every file through. Skim the six, then jump to whichever one you’re worried about.
01
Equity & CLTV
How much of the home’s value your liens can add up to — set mostly by how you document income.
02
Credit score
The floor to get in the door, and the tier that decides how much equity you can reach.
03
Income proof
W-2s and tax returns — or bank statements, rental income, or nothing at a
Start here: the ways we can qualify you
If a bank turned you down, it was almost always over how you prove income — not whether you can afford the loan. As a broker, we don’t have one income box to tick. We have several, and we pick the one that fits how you actually earn:
Full documentation
W-2s, pay stubs, tax returns. The cheapest path and the highest leverage — if your returns show the income.
Bank statement
12 or 24 months of deposits stand in for tax returns. Built for self-employed borrowers.
P&L or WVOE
A CPA-prepared profit-and-loss, or written verification of employment, instead of full returns.
1099 income
Qualify off your 1099 income for contractors and gig earners.
DSCR (rental income)
Investment properties qualify on the rent, not your personal income.
No-ratio
Investment lines with no income and no DSCR test — credit, equity, and reserves carry it.
No-income
Primary-residence lines that lean on credit, assets, and equity instead of income.
Foreign national
For non-resident investors, with a lighter documentation set and adjusted terms.
This is the whole point of using a broker
Eight ways in, not one. Tell us how you earn and we’ll match you to the path that qualifies you for the most line — that’s a conversation, and it’s free.
We’ll run the numbers for you: Take Mortgage Match and see the best HELOC you qualify for.
01 · Equity & CLTV by documentation type
Your line is capped by combined loan-to-value — every lien on the property, including the new HELOC, over its appraised value. The ceiling moves most with how you document income and how you use the property:
|
How you document income
|
Occupancy
|
Typical Max CLTV
|
|---|---|---|
|
Full doc / bank statement
|
Primary
|
up to 80% (to 90% full-doc)
|
|
WVOE or P&L
|
Primary
|
65%-75%
|
|
No income
|
Primary only
|
~60%
|
|
Bank statement
|
Primary& second home
|
70%-80%
|
|
DSCR / WVOE / P&L
|
Investment
|
~60%-70%
|
|
DSCR (standalone 1st lien)
|
Investment
|
60%–75% by tier
|
|
No-ratio
|
Investment only
|
~10 pts below standard
|
|
Foreign national
|
Investment only
|
~60%, smaller caps
|
If your equity is the tight spot, changing the documentation path is often what moves the ceiling — not waiting. Our HELOC guide walks through the full CLTV math with worked examples.
02 · Credit score and credit depth
Credit does two jobs: it sets the floor to qualify, and it sets the CLTV tier you reach. The minimum gets you in; a stronger score gets you more line.
|
Program
|
Typical minimum FICO
|
|---|---|
|
Full documentation (prime)
|
from ~640
|
|
Owner-occupied, alternative doc
|
680–720
|
|
Investment / DSCR
|
680–700 floor; 700–720+ for larger lines
|
|
No-income
|
~700
|
Two things we look at alongside the score:
Credit depth. Most alt-doc programs want three tradelines reporting for 12 months, or two reporting for 24 — sometimes waived when three scores are on file.
Mortgage history. A clean payment record matters more than the score itself here: no 30-day mortgage lates in the last 12 months is standard, and some investment programs do not allow any 30-day lates in the past 24 months.
If credit is your binding check
Often it’s a matter of one tier — a 690 reaching for the 80% bracket that opens at 720. Sometimes 30 days and a paid-down card gets you there. Send us the file and we’ll tell you whether it’s worth waiting or whether a different program already fits.
03 · Income: two completely different tests
How we test your ability to repay depends on which path from above you’re on. There are two, and they don’t overlap:
If you document income
We run a debt-to-income ratio. Expect a ceiling around 49%, tightening to about 45% on the largest lines.
One mechanic worth knowing: we qualify you at the note rate plus roughly 2%, amortized over the repayment period — a built-in cushion for when the draw period ends, not the rate you’ll actually pay day one.
If you’re an investor (DSCR)
No personal DTI at all. The property’s rent versus its payment (its DSCR) carries the file, and we qualify at the note rate. A property that doesn’t quite cover itself isn’t a dead end — we tier it, and the interest-only calculation can move you across a tier line. Here’s exactly how we handle a DSCR below 1.0.
On no-ratio, no-income, and foreign national paths, there’s no income test in either form — credit, equity, and reserves do the work instead.
04 · Reserves
Reserves are the months of full payment (principal, interest, taxes, insurance) we need to see you hold after closing. They scale with loan size and, on investment files, with how tightly the property covers itself:
|
Program
|
Typical minimum FICO
|
|---|---|
|
Standard file, DSCR at or above 1.0
|
~6 months PITIA
|
|
DSCR 0.75–0.99
|
~6 months PITIA
|
|
DSCR below 0.75 / larger lines
|
9–12 months PITIA
|
Reserves don’t change your ratios, but the lower tiers require more of them — so having them on hand is sometimes what makes a tier available at all. We’ll tell you the number upfront so nothing surprises you at underwriting. But in most cases, we use the line as a form of reserves.
05 · Ownership seasoning
If you bought recently, your line is trimmed until the property seasons. We count from the recording date to your application date:
|
How long have you owned the property
|
Effect on your line
|
|---|---|
|
Under 6 months
|
~10 points off CLTV
|
|
6 months to 1 year
|
~5 points off CLTV
|
|
1 year or more
|
No seasoning limitation
|
This is the one check where time genuinely fixes the problem. If a recent purchase is trimming your line below what you need, waiting to the next threshold may be the single move that gets you there — and we’ll tell you honestly when that’s the case.
06 · Eligible and ineligible property types
Some property types we place readily; others fall outside almost every Non-QM program. This is the check that documentation can’t fix — so it’s worth confirming early.
We can typically lend on
- Single-family homes (1–4 units)
- Manufactured homes (Full doc, primary only)
- Warrantable condos
- Site condos
- Planned unit developments (PUDs)
- Townhomes
Commonly off the table
- Mobile, or modular homes
- Condotels
- Co-ops, mixed-use, and leasehold
- Land trusts, hobby farms, rural/agricultural
- Properties on more than 10 acres
- Room-by-room, co-living, and PadSplit-style rentals
The rest of the fine print, in plain terms
Loan structure
Lines typically run from $50,000 to $750,000 in second position, with standalone first-lien investor lines reaching $2.5M–$3M.
Draw periods are 3 or 5 years, interest-only, over a 20- or 30-year total term. Rates are variable — an index (usually Prime) plus a fixed margin — commonly with an 18% lifetime cap and a floor around your start rate. Some programs ask for a minimum initial draw at closing and a short lock-out (about 30-90 days) before your next draw.
Where we can do this
Andes is licensed for HELOCs in Georgia, Florida, Texas, South Carolina, and Alabama, and we place business-purpose DSCR lines across most of the country.
Two state notes worth noting: Texas home equity lending follows Section 50(a)(6) constitutional rules — a 12-day cooling-off period, one such loan at a time, 12 months between closings, and fixed-rate-only structures on many products — and a number of Non-QM HELOC programs skip Texas entirely. Florida carries tighter overlays on some investment products and may require a survey.
Which requirement is actually stopping you?
Here’s what we’ve seen over hundreds of files: almost nobody is blocked by all six. One is binding, and the other five have room to spare.
The whole value of running your file with us is that we find the one that matters — and once we know which it is, we know whether it’s fixed by a different program, a little time, or a different structure.
A thin-equity file changes documentation paths. A one-tier credit gap sometimes waits 30 days. A recent purchase seasons. A low DSCR moves to interest-only or no-ratio. Six different problems, six different answers — and none of them are visible from a checklist.
How do we put these numbers together? Our methodology
The ranges on this page reflect current wholesale guidelines across the multiple Non-QM and DSCR lenders we work with, reviewed as of July 2026. As a broker, we place your file with whichever of them fits it best, which is why we show ranges here and confirm your exact numbers on a call.
We publish a figure only when two or more independent lender sources corroborate it, and we show it as a range rather than a single number. Individual programs land inside — and occasionally outside — every range shown. We don’t publish any one lender’s guidelines and we don’t name lenders.
- CLTV figures are maximums and assume the credit tier that supports them
- FICO minimums are floors, not the score that reaches the highest line
- Reserves are stated in months of PITIA on the subject property
- Everything here assumes an otherwise clean file, and nothing on this page is a commitment to lend or a guarantee of approval
Program terms and eligibility vary by lender and are subject to change without notice. Figures shown are typical market ranges as of the date above, not a commitment to lend. Andes Mortgage LLC, NMLS #2187991. Equal Housing Lender.
Frequently asked questions
What credit score do I need for a HELOC?
On a full-documentation program we can start around 640. Our alternative-documentation programs — bank statement, DSCR, no-income — typically want 680 to 720. A minimum score usually qualifies you for the lowest CLTV tier, so a stronger score means more available line rather than just a yes or no.
Can I get a HELOC with no tax returns?
Yes — it’s a large part of what we do. Bank statement programs use 12 to 24 months of deposits, DSCR programs use rental income, and no-income programs lean on credit, assets, and equity. Each trades a bit of leverage for not documenting income the traditional way.
How much equity do I need?
What’s the debt-to-income limit?
Do I need reserves?
Can I qualify right after buying the property?
Build note: all questions go into manual FAQPage JSON-LD via WPCode — not the Yoast block. Validate at validator.schema.org.
Related
Stop guessing whether you qualify.
Answer a few questions and we’ll show you the CLTV your file supports, the path that qualifies you for the most line, and the one check — if any — that’s worth clearing before you apply.
Andes Mortgage, LLC. NMLS ID #2187991 · NMLS Consumer Access · Not available in all states. Offer of credit is subject to credit approval. Not an offer of credit. Equal Housing Lender.
States we service: Georgia · Florida · Texas · South Carolina · Alabama
1 Concourse Parkway, Suite 800, Atlanta, GA 30328 · 770-740-4050 · info@andesmortgage.com
How much equity do I need for a HELOC?
Enough to sit under the CLTV ceiling for your path — up to 90% combined on full-doc, and 60% to 80% on most alternative-documentation programs. On a primary residence with documented income, that can mean as little as 10% to 20% equity remaining after the line.
What's the debt to income limit?
On income-documented programs, roughly 49%, tightening toward 45% on the largest lines. On DSCR, no-ratio, no-income, and foreign national programs, personal DTI isn’t calculated at all.
Can I qualify after buying the property?
Often yes, but with a reduced line until the property seasons — about 10 points of CLTV under six months of ownership, about 5 points from six months to a year, and no limitation after a year
Don't stop here
DSCR for short term rentals and Airbnb
See how we help STR investors qualify for DSCR
Send us the property. We'll find the angle.
Give us your rental and its rent, and we’ll run it both ways, tell you the tier it lands in, and quote a low-ratio line and a no-ratio line side by side — so you can see exactly what Andes can put together before you commit to anything.
770-740-4050
Call or text
info@andesmortgage.com
Email Us
Mon-Friday: 9AM-6PM
Our hours