Where are you with the property?
Twelve months of booking history is the line that decides almost everything downstream.
Where do the bookings come from?
This decides which payout statement is your income document.
Who runs the bookings?
Software exports and manager statements are treated very differently from platform payouts.
What kind of market is the property in?
Market type is about the depth of the sales and rental data behind the property, not about the people who live there.
Would it pencil as a long-term rental?
If long-term market rent alone carries the payment, you have a third tier available to you. If it does not, that door is closed. Run the Pencil Test if the property is in the Poconos and you want to check.
Two optional details
Both are optional. They add the Pennsylvania prepayment note and, for Pocono properties, the permission-first check.
Your tier
—
How this tier underwrites
Your document list
Every item here is what this tier typically accepts. Document rules are lender-specific — confirm in writing before you gather twelve months of anything.
Ask these three before you pay for the appraisal
Want the long version? The Terms-Before-Appraisal request form puts nine of these in writing, in the lender's own words.
Email my checklist & tell me which lenders are in my tier
What you get
- Your lender tier and fallback
- The document list that tier actually accepts
- The three questions to ask before the appraisal
- A printable checklist
- For Pocono properties, the permission-first link
Who it's for: Airbnb and VRBO hosts financing an STR with a DSCR loan — first one or fifth — who've hit a documentation wall or a long-term-rent-comp surprise.
Walk away with: a tier, a list, three questions.
What this does not do
- It does not quote a rate. No rate is shown anywhere on this page, and nothing here is pricing.
- It does not name lenders. Which lenders sit in which tier is what we know and what we shop on your behalf. Ask and we'll tell you.
- It does not promise a lender will accept your file. Credit, reserves, entity structure, experience and the property's condition all sit outside this page.
- It does not confirm the property may be short-term rented. That is a municipal and HOA question. For Pocono properties, run the STR Check first.
- It is not a Loan Estimate, a commitment, or legal advice. Tier rules are typical patterns, not any one lender's guidelines.
Straight answers
Why was my Guesty or Hostaway export rejected?
Because a PMS export is generated by you, from software you control, and most lenders that count real short-term-rental income treat it as user-editable. The document that carries the file is the platform's own payout statement — Airbnb's Earnings CSV, VRBO's owner payout report — matched line for line against deposits in your bank statements. Send the PMS export too, but send it as supporting material, not as the income document.
Every lender says they need 12 months of trailing history. Is that universal?
No. It is universal within one tier. Tier A lenders build their whole method on trailing-twelve platform history, so that is the answer you will get every time you call one. Tier B lenders will work from a market projection when there is no history to use. Tier C lenders do not count short-term income at all and underwrite to long-term market rent. Three tiers, three answers — the trick is knowing which one you are calling.
Why would a lender use long-term rent on my short-term rental?
Because that lender is in Tier C. It is not a judgment about your property; it is their method. They order the appraiser's Form 1007 long-term market rent and run the ratio on that number regardless of what the property actually grosses. Short-term renting is still allowed — the income just isn't counted. If long-term rent alone carries the payment, that can be a perfectly good loan. If it doesn't, you are in the wrong tier.
I have real history. Why was I told AirDNA isn't a viable path?
Because projections are generally the fallback for a property with no history, not an alternative to history you already have. Once a trailing-twelve exists, most lenders that would have taken a projection want the real numbers instead. That is Tier A rules applying, and it is usually good news: documented history normally supports better terms than a projection does.
Does this tell me whether I can short-term rent the property?
No, and nothing that comes out of a lender will either. Permission comes from the municipality and, separately, from the HOA or POA charter. In the Poconos we link you to the STR Check, which covers the township layer. Do that first: the tier only matters if short-term renting is allowed at all.