Financing mixed-use residential over retail
Which lenders finance a mixed-use building with retail on the ground floor?
Ground-floor retail under residential units narrows the lender field immediately — this directory’s standard rental and multi-family products are not built to underwrite commercial lease income, and only a couple of lenders here are.
- Mixed-use / commercial DSCR loan The retail component makes this a property type outside the standard 1-4 unit or pure multi-family box, and only lenders that explicitly write mixed-use or commercial product will underwrite it.
- Standard single-family or multi-family DSCR loan A lender whose product is scoped to purely residential rental will not have a framework for underwriting the retail income and lease terms downstairs.
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.
Why the retail component changes the underwriting box
A pure residential DSCR loan is built around one income type: rent from a lease or a market-rent estimate. A mixed-use building adds a second, structurally different income stream — commercial lease income, typically governed by a triple-net or modified gross lease with its own term, escalation clauses, and tenant creditworthiness question. A lender needs a framework for both income types at once, which is why the field narrows to lenders that explicitly carry a mixed-use or commercial product tag rather than the broader rental universe.
What the commercial lease adds to the file
Expect the commercial tenant’s lease itself — term remaining, renewal options, any co-tenancy or exclusive-use clauses — to matter in a way no residential lease clause ever does. A retail lease with two years left and no renewal option reads very differently to an underwriter than one with ten years remaining and a national tenant, even if the current rent figure is identical.
Why the roster below is short
Neither lender that carries a mixed-use or commercial tag in this directory has a stored verification date, so the roster below is entirely in the "writes the product, has not published the threshold" bucket rather than a confirmed "clears" list. That is a direct reflection of how thin published data is for this property type across the industry, not a curation gap.
What to have ready
- Commercial tenant lease(s) with term and renewal details
- Residential rent roll for the upstairs units
- Breakdown of square footage by use (retail vs. residential)
Questions
Can I use a standard DSCR loan on a mixed-use property?
Does the retail tenant’s lease term matter?
Why are there no confirmed "clears" lenders on this page?
Terms used on this page
- Net Operating Income (NOI) — Net operating income is a property’s annual income minus its operating expenses, calculated before any mortgage payment. It measures what the property earns, independent of how it was financed.
- Capitalization Rate (Cap Rate) — A cap rate is a property’s annual net operating income divided by its price or value, expressed as a percentage. It is the unlevered yield the property produces at that price.
- Debt Service Coverage Ratio (DSCR) — DSCR is a property’s gross monthly rent divided by its total monthly mortgage payment. A DSCR of 1.00 means the rent exactly covers the payment; 1.25 means rent exceeds the payment by 25%.