DSCR Rate Estimator
Estimated DSCR rates
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Estimated rate
Why a DSCR rate is not the rate you see in the headlines
The chart above is built on the rate every mortgage headline quotes: Freddie Mac’s weekly survey of the 30-year fixed. It describes an owner-occupied, conforming loan sold to Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. A DSCR loan is none of those things. It is underwritten to the property’s rent rather than to your tax returns, it is not agency-eligible, and it is funded instead through private securitization — so it prices above the survey, and the chart adds a fixed spread to put it there.
That last point is the one worth internalising, because it is why a fixed markup over the headline number is the wrong mental model. Conforming rates track agency mortgage-backed securities. DSCR rates track non-QM securitization spreads. Those two markets move together most of the time and come apart precisely when credit gets nervous — the gap between them has run near a point in calm conditions and blown well past three in a dislocation, without the headline number moving nearly as much.
So the honest version of “what is the DSCR rate today” has two halves. The first half is measured, published weekly, and drawn above. The second half is an assumption, and this page puts it in a field you can change rather than burying it in a constant and presenting the sum as fact.
The same goes for the adjustments. Leverage, purpose, coverage and credit all move a DSCR rate, and they move it in the direction and roughly the granularity the grid shows — eighths and quarters of a point, worse as leverage rises, materially worse on a cash-out. But where one lender breaks its tiers is not where the next one does. So read the output as a shape rather than a price: it will tell you that dropping from 80% to 75% LTV is worth more than picking up twenty points of FICO, and that is a decision you can act on before anyone pulls your credit.
To work out whether the loan clears its ratio in the first place, use the DSCR calculator, which computes coverage both ways lenders do it. For how these loans compare with a conventional investment-property mortgage, see DSCR vs conventional.
Common questions
- Are DSCR loan rates higher than conventional rates?
- Yes, consistently. A DSCR loan is underwritten to the property's income rather than to your personal income, it is not eligible for sale to Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, and it ends up in a private securitization instead. Investors buying that paper want to be paid for the extra risk and the thinner market, so the rate sits above the conforming 30-year fixed. How far above is the question this page exists to make visible rather than to answer with false precision.
- How much higher is a DSCR rate than the 30-year fixed?
- There is no single answer, and anyone quoting one is guessing. The gap is not a fixed markup — DSCR paper prices off non-QM securitization spreads, which move independently of the conforming market. What can be measured is how the adjustments behave, and those are consistent: across seventeen lenders' sheets pulled the same day, taking cash out cost a median of 0.240 on the rate, and moving from 65% to 80% leverage cost 0.475. The level those adjustments sit on top of is the part that moves with the market.
- Where does the 30-year fixed number come from?
- Freddie Mac's Primary Mortgage Market Survey, series MORTGAGE30US, retrieved from FRED at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. It is published weekly on Thursdays and is the number behind most consumer rate headlines. That series is the only figure on this page taken from a public source. The adjustments come from seventeen lenders' own DSCR rate sheets; the level is calibrated to a real quote.
- Is this a rate quote?
- No. It is an illustration built from a published index and a set of assumptions you can see and edit. It is not an offer of credit, not a commitment to lend, and not an APR — an APR includes points and fees this page knows nothing about. A real quote comes from a lender who has looked at the property, the lease and your credit.
- Why does the tool refuse to price some scenarios?
- Because some scenarios are not priced at any rate. Most DSCR programmes cap a cash-out refinance below where they cap a purchase, and most stop entirely below a certain coverage ratio or credit score. When you cross one of those lines the tool says which line you crossed instead of extrapolating a rate that no lender would actually offer.
How this figure is built
The 30-year fixed is Freddie Mac’s published weekly survey; the chart is that survey plus 0.530%, so its shape is the survey’s and only its level is ours. The adjustments are medians across 17 lenders’ DSCR rate sheets dated September 8, 2026, converted from the price adjustments those sheets state into rate — a rate sheet moves in price, and price and rate are not the same thing.
The level is calibrated to one real quote on one file — 75% LTV · 740 FICO · purchase · DSCR 1.20 · single family · 3-year prepayment penalty — from the best-priced lender rather than an average one, so this reads at the keen end: closer to what a well-shopped file gets than to what the next lender will say.