Ground-up construction built to hold as a rental

Building new construction with the plan to rent it, not sell it

The construction budget and the eventual rental loan are unrelated underwriting events — the rent has to be provable at the appraisal stage, not assumed from a pro forma built months earlier.

Fits

Construction loan into a DSCR refinance The construction lender finances the build against its completed value; the rental loan that follows underwrites whatever rent the finished property actually produces.

Wrong tool here

DSCR rental loan to fund the construction itself A DSCR loan prices against rent on a standing, rentable property — there's no rent to underwrite before the structure exists.

Lenders in the directory

No lender here publishes a rule for this

This is an underwriting judgment, not a published threshold. None of the 37 lenders in the directory states a policy on it, so there is no honest way to build a shortlist — and a list computed only from which products a lender writes would tell you nothing you could act on.

What matters here is how the file is presented rather than which lender receives it. The sections below cover that. When you are ready to approach lenders, the directory shows what each one does publish, with the date it was verified.

Open the lender directory

Two loans, and the second one doesn't reference the first

The construction lender finances the build against a completed-value appraisal and its own draw schedule. Once the property is finished and, ideally, leased, the DSCR refinance is underwritten entirely fresh, based on the rent the property is producing at that point — the construction budget plays no role in that calculation.

Rent has to be provable, not projected

The refinance appraiser needs a rent schedule or a signed lease to support the rent figure the DSCR ratio runs on. A pro forma rent estimate used to plan the project is not the same thing as an appraiser-supported number, and the two can differ — see market rent vs. actual rent.

Seasoning before the cash-out

Most lenders apply a seasoning period from the construction loan's closing before a cash-out refinance is allowed at full value. A delayed financing exception is a narrow carve-out for an all-cash purchase refinanced almost immediately, and generally does not apply to a property that closed with a construction loan already in place.

Carrying the property through lease-up

The gap between certificate of occupancy and a signed lease is unrented time with real carrying costs and no offsetting income — see vacancy and collection loss. Reserves need to cover that window, not just the construction period itself.

What to have ready

A construction budget and draw schedule agreed with the builder
A realistic lease-up timeline after certificate of occupancy
A rent comp package for the finished unit, not just the original pro forma
Reserves to carry the property through lease-up before refinancing

Run the numbers on this deal

Questions

Can I lock in the DSCR refinance rate before construction finishes?

That depends entirely on the specific refinance lender's policy; it isn't a standard feature of construction-to-permanent financing across this directory.

What if the property doesn't lease up as fast as planned?

Carrying costs continue without offsetting rent until it's leased, which is exactly what reserves are meant to cover. It also delays when the DSCR refinance has an actual rent figure to underwrite.

Does the construction lender care what rent I eventually get?

No — the construction loan is underwritten against the completed-value appraisal and the draw schedule, not against future rent.

Terms used on this page

Form 1007 (Single-Family Comparable Rent Schedule) — Form 1007 is a one-page appraisal addendum, ordered alongside the standard appraisal on a one-unit property, in which the appraiser identifies comparable rentals and reconciles them to a single opinion of the property’s market rent.
Market Rent vs. Actual Rent — Market rent is an appraiser’s opinion of what a comparable unit should currently rent for. Actual rent is the contract rent stated in an existing lease. The two frequently differ, and which one a lender uses to qualify a loan depends on the lender’s policy.
Seasoning Period — A seasoning period is the minimum time a lender requires you to have held a property, a loan, or funds before it will lend against them. Title seasoning is the version that most affects investors.
Vacancy and Collection Loss — Vacancy and collection loss is the portion of a property’s potential gross rent lost to unrented time and to rent billed but not collected. Subtracting it from potential gross rent produces effective gross income.