North Carolina · NMLS #926762
Qualify on what you have rather than what you earn. Built for retirees, business sellers and anyone whose balance sheet looks nothing like their tax return.
The short version. An asset based mortgage converts your eligible accounts into a qualifying monthly income using a formula, without requiring you to liquidate or withdraw anything. The divisor the lender uses, 60 months or 120, matters more than almost anything else in the file. Call or text me at 704-890-7168.
An asset based loan, sometimes called asset depletion or asset utilization, converts what you have saved into a qualifying income using a formula. It does not require you to withdraw anything, sell anything, or change how the money is invested.
The lender adds your eligible assets, applies a discount to the ones that carry market risk, subtracts the money you are using for the down payment and closing costs, and divides the remainder by a fixed number of months. That quotient is your income for the file. Most lenders divide by 60, some by 84, a few by 120, and that divisor alone will swing your qualifying income by a factor of two.
It is the single most important question to ask, and almost nobody asks it.
A borrower with $1.4 million eligible after the down payment qualifies at roughly $23,300 a month on a 60 month divisor. The same borrower at a lender dividing by 120 qualifies at about $11,600. Identical assets, identical person, half the house.
| Asset | Commonly counted at | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Checking and savings | 100 percent | Cleanest money in the file |
| Brokerage, stocks, bonds, mutual funds | Around 70 to 80 percent | Discounted for market risk |
| Retirement accounts, if you are past the penalty age | Around 70 percent | Treatment improves once withdrawals are penalty free |
| Retirement accounts, if you are not | Often reduced further or excluded | Varies more by lender than any other category |
| Business accounts | Case by case | Usually needs an accountant letter saying withdrawal will not harm the business |
| Crypto | Usually excluded until converted | Some lenders count it after conversion and seasoning |
| Home equity, vehicles, collectibles | Excluded | Not liquid |
Seasoning matters too. A large deposit that landed last week invites questions. The same balance sitting there for three months does not.
Four situations, and they come up constantly in North Carolina.
In every one of those, the problem is identical. Capacity is obvious and income documentation is absent.
This state imports retirees and exited owners at a rate that makes asset based lending unusually relevant here.
The pattern repeats across the map. Somebody sells a company in New Jersey and buys in Pinehurst. A couple leaves Long Island for Brunswick County and the coast at Southport or St James. Executives land in Asheville and Brevard for the mountains, and the Lake Norman towns, Mooresville, Davidson and Cornelius, pull a steady stream of early-retired people who want water without the Florida summer. Almost all of them arrive asset rich and income thin, carrying a tax return that a retail bank will read as a decline.
I live in the middle of that last market and I have watched the same conversation happen more times than I can count: a buyer with seven figures liquid is told by a national lender that they do not qualify for a $700,000 house. They do. The lender simply has no product that can see them.
A couple selling in the Northeast and buying in Pinehurst at $780,000 with 30 percent down.
Their joint tax return showed Social Security and a modest amount of dividend income. On that return alone, no conventional lender in the country approves this purchase. On the formula above, the file is not close to tight.
Plenty of these buyers could. Some should, and when the answer is obvious I say so.
The arguments against go roughly like this. Liquidating a taxable brokerage position to buy a house creates a capital gains event in a single year, which is a real and sometimes very large cost that never appears in the comparison people run in their heads. Money pulled out of the market stops compounding. And a paid-off house is the least accessible asset you own, because getting cash back out of it later means qualifying for a loan at whatever age and income profile you have then, which is usually worse than the one you have now.
The argument for paying cash is that borrowing costs money and certainty has value. Both positions are defensible. This is a question for your financial advisor and your CPA rather than for me, and anyone in my business who tells you confidently which one to pick is overstepping.
If you have an operating business with real deposits, a bank statement program usually qualifies you for more. If your income arrives on 1099s, a 1099 program will. If the property is a rental, a DSCR loan ignores your personal finances entirely and is almost always the cheaper path. Asset based lending is the answer when none of those apply, which is to say when there is no income stream to document at all.
It also combines. Several lenders will add an asset based figure to documented income, so a retiree with a pension and a portfolio can use both, and that combination frequently qualifies someone who failed on either one alone.
Your closing runs through an attorney. North Carolina requires a licensed North Carolina attorney to handle the title opinion and the deed, under G.S. 84-2.1 and State Bar Advisory Opinion 2002-1, and you pick the attorney rather than inheriting one. For an out of state buyer this is usually the first thing nobody told them, and it is worth lining up early because a relocating buyer has enough moving parts already.
Two more. The state excise tax runs $1 per $500 of price and the seller pays it, with six coastal counties, Camden, Chowan, Currituck, Dare, Pasquotank and Perquimans, adding a local land transfer tax of up to 1 percent. And the 2026 conforming limit is $832,750 in every county in the state, with no high-cost designation anywhere, so a Pinehurst or Wilmington purchase above that figure is a jumbo or non-QM file no matter how strong the balance sheet behind it is.
I will tell you what the formula produces at the divisors my lenders actually use, and which of them treats your particular mix of accounts most favorably. No credit pull to find out.
I am Scott Hastings, a mortgage broker with Arbor Financial Group, based at 121 N Main St in Mooresville. The Lake Norman towns, Pinehurst, Asheville and the Brunswick County coast all draw asset rich and income thin buyers, and those files are a regular part of my week rather than a rarity.
Licensed in 13 states including North Carolina. Individual NMLS ID 926762, verifiable on NMLS Consumer Access.
Mortgages by Scott has been accredited by the Better Business Bureau since 2015, and I have been originating mortgages for more than twenty years. WalletHub named me one of the best mortgage brokers in Charlotte for 2026.
Often yes, through an asset based program. The lender converts your eligible assets into a qualifying income using a formula rather than asking for pay stubs or tax returns. You do not have to withdraw or liquidate anything to use it.
It totals your eligible assets, discounts the ones carrying market risk, subtracts your down payment and closing costs, then divides the remainder by a set number of months. Common divisors are 60, 84 and 120, and the divisor has an enormous effect on the result.
Sometimes, at a reduced rate, and some lenders exclude them entirely until withdrawals are penalty free. This is the category where lenders differ most, so it is worth comparing several before concluding your accounts do not qualify.
No. The assets stay invested and the formula is a qualifying calculation, not a liquidation requirement. You will need to document the balances and, for some accounts, show that the money has been there for a period of time.
Yes, many lenders allow the asset based figure to be added to documented income. Retirees with a pension and a portfolio frequently qualify on the combination when neither piece would have been enough by itself.
It is $832,750 for a one unit property in all one hundred counties. North Carolina has no high-cost county designation, so purchases above that amount are jumbo or non-QM regardless of the market or the strength of the assets behind the file.
Send me the summary pages for the accounts you want counted and what you are hoping to buy. I will run the formula at the divisors my lenders use and tell you where you land. No credit pull.
Text Scott: 704-890-7168 Call 704-890-7168Scott Hastings, individual NMLS #926762. Arbor Financial Group, 121 N Main St Ste 202, Mooresville, NC 28115. Phone and text 704-890-7168. Licensed to originate mortgage loans in North Carolina.
Equal Housing Opportunity. This page is general information about loan programs and is not a commitment to lend, a loan approval, or an offer of credit. Program availability, qualifying guidelines, credit score minimums, down payment and reserve requirements vary by lender and are subject to change. Nothing here is legal, tax or financial advice.
Asset based and asset depletion loan programs are non-QM products. Eligible asset types, discount rates, seasoning requirements and the divisor used vary by lender and are subject to change. Figures used in examples on this page are illustrative and are not quotes, offers or predictions of what any particular borrower will qualify for. Nothing on this page is tax or investment advice.
