DSCR Loan Minimum Loan Amount 2026: 12,291 Loans Under $100,000

What the "minimum loan amount" claim says, and what lenders closed

Search for a DSCR loan minimum and you get lender blogs and forum threads. One lender blog, last updated October 29, 2026, says the average DSCR lender requires a minimum loan amount of $100K to $150K and that most lenders simply won't issue loans of $55,000 to $99,000 (Ridge Street Capital, which markets a small-balance program). Lima One's short-term rental page, read October 31, 2026, lists loans from $75K to $2.5M, and our DSCR loan requirements page records the floors seven lenders print. None of those pages shows how many loans each lender actually closed at what size. The federal record does.

Every lender above the reporting thresholds files each loan it originates under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, with amount, rate, term, property value and county. We downloaded the 2025 originated first-lien investment-property loans for the 50 states and the District of Columbia on October 31, 2026 (51 files; territories not downloaded) and computed every figure here from them (our arithmetic).

The definition, and the rounding you need to know

HMDA has no DSCR field, so we use the group our DSCR lenders ranked page uses: loan type conventional, first lien, one to four units, investment-property occupancy, business or commercial purpose coded 1, not an open-end line of credit, not a reverse mortgage, debt-to-income ratio “NA” and a term of 360 months or longer. Emporium TPO LLC reports 30- and 40-year loans as a term of 30 and 40, which we count as 360 and 480 months, as that page does. Run on today's file this gives 154,293 loans; the ranked page shows 154,354 from an earlier pull, and the 61-loan difference is the file changing as lenders resubmit.

In the public file the loan amount is a midpoint of a $10,000 band: all 154,293 values end in 5,000 (a $97,500 loan appears as $95,000). So “under $100,000” means a loan of $0 to $99,999, and “$70,000 to $99,999” is the 75,000, 85,000 and 95,000 bands. We therefore draw lines at multiples of $10,000 and not at $75,000. The FFIEC field list prints that rounding for property value, which is rounded to the midpoint of the nearest $10,000 interval, and the loan amounts we observe follow the same pattern.

How big DSCR loans actually are

DSCR-type loans in 2025 by loan size

Cumulatively, 7.97% of loans were under $100,000, 15.2% under $125,000, 25.3% under $150,000 and 42.9% under $200,000. The dollars are small: the 12,291 loans under $100,000 total $971.7 million, 2.0% of the $48.3 billion. The median loan to value was 75.0% for loans under $100,000 and 72.5% for the rest, so a small loan is not a lower-leverage loan.

The buyer these loans serve looks like the one the keyword describes: 90.2% were single-unit properties (78.6% of larger loans), 44.0% were purchases, and the median property value was $115,000 in the $70,000 to $99,999 band. Interest-only was rarer on small loans, 4.1% against 11.1% (our arithmetic).

What you pay for a small balance

Median note rate, loans under $100,000 against $100,000 and over

A lender's fixed costs weigh more on a small balance, and the data shows a half-point premium. The tempting objection is mix: the lenders who write small loans may simply price higher. Two checks say mix is not the whole story. Removing United Wholesale Mortgage, the largest small-loan lender at 3,520, leaves 7.75% against 7.25%. And comparing each lender with itself, among the 18 lenders with at least 100 loans on each side of $100,000:

• 16 had a higher median note rate on loans under $100,000, 2 the same (Velocity Commercial Capital at 9.865% and MM Lending at 12%) and none lower;
• the biggest gaps were Guaranteed Rate at 0.875 points (8.125% against 7.25%), Deephaven Mortgage at 0.625, RCN Capital at 0.47, Constructive Loans and AmWest Funding at 0.5;
• the median of the 18 gaps was 0.35 points. Kiavi Funding's gap was 0.125 (7.375% against 7.25%) and United Wholesale Mortgage's 0.375.

The rate is not the whole price. HMDA carries no fee data for these business-purpose loans. Ridge Street's own example, a $72,000 loan on a $90,000 duplex, lists a $2,500 origination fee and a $1,995 legal and underwriting fee, which is $4,495 or 6.24% of the loan (our arithmetic); the same page says the closing costs can be proportionally high in comparison to the size of the loan. On a $90,000 loan at 30 years, 7.75% against 7.25% is $644.77 against $613.96 a month, a $30.81 difference, $370 a year (our arithmetic, standard amortization).

Which lenders closed the small loans

The ten lenders with the most DSCR-type loans under $100,000, 2025

The smallest loan band is the midpoint of a $10,000 band, so $75,000 means a loan between $70,000 and $79,999; Lima One's smallest band matches the $75K floor on its short-term rental page. These ten made 84.8% of loans under $100,000, the top five 69.2%. Names are as filed; a lender's DSCR products may be sold through brokers, as with United Wholesale Mortgage, so a borrower may not deal with the filer directly. See our DSCR lenders ranked page and Kiavi review for the larger lenders.

The other side matters as much when you are told “we start at $150,000”. Among lenders with 1,000 or more DSCR-type loans, these made almost no small loans:

• Ice Lender Holdings (1,204 loans) and Nexera Holding (1,946): none under $100,000, smallest bands $125,000 and $105,000;
• Logan Finance (1,730): 1 loan; East West Bank (1,258): 1;
• Champions Funding (7,110): 5; HomeXpress Mortgage (5,315): 7; Hometown Equity Mortgage (5,138): 7.

Overall, 127 of 464 lenders made at least one loan under $100,000, and of 103 lenders with 100 or more DSCR-type loans, 37 made none (our arithmetic). A large lender is not a small-loan lender; ask for the smallest loan it closed last year.

Where small DSCR loans are made

States with at least 1,000 DSCR-type loans, ranked by share under $100,000

Five states (Ohio, Michigan, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Illinois) hold 55.3% of all loans under $100,000. Mississippi, with only 833 loans, had 32.4% under $100,000. The county view is sharper:

County names come from the Census Bureau 2020 county list; the city in brackets is the largest city in the county, not a boundary of the loans, and St. Louis County excludes the independent City of St. Louis. For single-state detail see our Michigan, Ohio, Missouri, Texas and Florida pages.

What this data cannot tell you

• No DSCR field. The group is a proxy; it will include some loans not underwritten on rent and miss DSCR loans coded with a ratio or with a short term.
• Closed loans only. We counted originations. Applications denied or withdrawn, which would show how many small requests were refused, are in our denial analysis, not here.
• Rate is not APR. Points and fees are not in the data for these loans. A small loan with a $4,495 fixed fee costs more than its note rate says.
• Current minimums. A 2025 loan shows that a lender closed that size, not that it still does. Ridge Street's page says it is no longer providing loans under $100K in Ohio and Pennsylvania, two of the states with the most.
• Rounded amounts. A $99,000 loan is in the $95,000 band; a $70,000 loan is in the $75,000 band.

What a small-balance investor can do with this

1. Ask each lender for the smallest loan it closed in the last year, not its advertised minimum. Use the table above: a lender whose smallest band is $125,000 will not write your $85,000 loan, whatever its size is on the website.
2. Shop where the small loans are. If a $90,000 rental is your deal, lenders in the ten-lender table and the Midwest counties above have a record of closing it; national lenders with almost none are a waste of an application.
3. Price the fee, not just the rate. On a loan this size, an origination fee and a fixed legal fee are a larger share of the balance; ask for the fee sheet and compare total cost over your hold period.
4. Consider a bigger balance on a cash-out or a blanket loan if the lender's floor is the obstacle. Our blanket loan page covers rolling several small properties into one loan.
5. Compare with a conventional investor loan if you qualify on income: see DSCR loan vs conventional mortgage and our best DSCR lender comparison.

FAQ

This is analysis of public documents, not investment, legal or tax advice. Sources: FFIEC/CFPB HMDA Data Browser, 2025 originated first-lien investment-property loans for the 50 states and the District of Columbia, downloaded October 31, 2026 (request pattern in the data file); FFIEC HMDA LAR data fields list; Census Bureau 2020 county list; Ridge Street Capital, “DSCR Loans Under $100K” (page last updated October 29, 2026); Lima One Capital short-term rental loan page, read October 31, 2026. Lender names are as filed with the FFIEC.