Doma Loans / Wealth Summit 2026

Many paths,
one front door

Gaurav Vaish / Doma Loans / 510.513.9369 / gvaish@domaloans.com / NMLS #2122782

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The instrument

The box

01W-2 incomeTwo years. Ideally one employer.
02Tax returnsTwo years. And it reads one line.
03Debt-to-incomeYour debts measured against that line.
04Loan sizeUp to $1,249,125 in Alameda County.

31 Net profit or (loss) $148,000

Schedule C (Form 1040) / this is the line

2026 conforming limit, Alameda County, one unit. National baseline: $832,750. Source: FHFA.

16,500,000

Americans are self-employed - about one in ten workers.

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Current Population Survey, June 2026. Incorporated and unincorporated self-employed combined.

Scenario 01 / Bank statement

The business owner who did everything right

She runs a fourteen-person practice in Fremont. $1.1 million in receipts. Her CPA structured the entity, maxed the retirement plan, took Section 179 and captured QBI.

Line 31 came out at $148,000.

She is delighted. Her lender is not.

What the box sees

Schedule C, line 31

$12,333 / mo

$148,000 a year

What a bank statement program sees

24 months of business deposits, less a 50% expense factor

$43,333 / mo

from $1,040,000 a year in deposits

3.5× the qualifying income. Same business, same bank account, same woman. Her CPA did not cost her the house - the form did.

For the CPAs in the room: a CPA-prepared profit-and-loss statement can often support an expense factor well below the default 50%. That letter can be worth more to your client than another deduction. - Figures illustrative, not an offer or commitment. Statement periods, expense factors and eligibility vary by program and lender.

Scenario 02 / Asset depletion

The buyer with $3.2 million and no income

He sold his stake two years ago. Fifty-one years old. $3.2 million in a brokerage account, another $900,000 in retirement.

No W-2 since, and no intention of another one.

He wants a $2.8 million house and he is putting 40% down.

$3,200,000eligible assets
÷ 120months
$26,667per month of qualifying income

No employer. No W-2. Documented, underwritable income.

So why borrow at all? He could write the check. Because writing the check means liquidating $1.7 million - long-term gains, net investment income tax, and California on top. The mortgage is not the expensive option. It is the tax-efficient one.

You spent this morning learning exactly that. This is the same lesson with a deed attached. - Figures illustrative, not an offer or commitment. Divisors, eligible account types, seasoning and age restrictions vary by program. Nothing here is tax advice; that is the person who sold you the ticket.

Variation / full doc + asset depletion

The W-2 earner who ran out of ratio, not money

Staff engineer. $420,000 in base and bonus, fully documented, W-2 in hand. $1.8 million in vested company stock.

He wants a $3.2 million house with 25% down.

Underwriting puts him at 57% debt-to-income and stops.

W-2 income, documented$35,000 / mo

Monthly obligations$19,900 / mo

DTI on the W-2 alone Declined57%

Asset depletion, $1.8M ÷ 120 months+ $15,000 / mo

Blended DTI Approved40%

He never sold a share, and he never pledged one. Pledging would have made it worse - a securities-backed line is one more monthly obligation on the very ratio that was already failing.

Vested shares are an asset, and agency underwriting will not turn an asset into income. Blending full documentation with asset depletion does exactly that: no liquidation event, no capital gain, no margin call. - Figures illustrative, not an offer or commitment. Eligible account types, divisors, concentration limits and maximum DTI vary by program and lender.

Scenario 03 / Bridge

The family with $1.3 million in the house they already own

Their home has done exactly what they hoped it would do. It is worth $1.9 million, with $600,000 left on it.

The family has grown, and the house that fits them now is $2.4 million.

The down payment already exists. It is sitting in the walls of the home they are living in today.

To buy, they need the equity

and the equity requires selling

↓ deadlock ↑

To sell, they need somewhere to go

and somewhere to go requires buying

The bridge

12 months / no interest / no payments

Borrow against the equity in the departing residence
Make a clean, non-contingent offer on the new home
Close, and move
Sell on your timeline, not a buyer's
Retire the bridge out of the sale proceeds

Why it clears underwriting

No monthly payment means no monthly obligation, so the bridge never enters the debt-to-income calculation at all. And if they rent the departing house rather than rushing the sale, that rental income counts toward qualifying too.

They never had a money problem. They had a sequencing problem.

A contingent offer in this market is usually a losing offer. - Figures illustrative, not an offer or commitment. The 12-month, no-interest, no-payment structure is a specific program with its own eligibility, equity and exit requirements, and is subject to change and to underwriting approval. Departing-residence rental income has its own documentation and vacancy-factor requirements.

Scenario 04 / Reserves and credit

No income. No employment. No worries.

Founder, four years in. The company is real, the board is real, and the S-1 is being drafted.

His W-2 says almost nothing, because almost nothing is what he pays himself.

She is buying out her former spouse's share of the home her children grew up in. The settlement is signed.

The buyout is due in January. Her payout lands in March.

2 to 12

months of cash reserves

$3M

maximum loan amount

None

income documented

None

employment verified

Neither of them is short of money. Both of them are early. Underwriting cannot measure income that has not arrived yet, so this program stops trying and measures what is already there: the reserves, the credit, and the down payment.

Owner-occupied only. Figures and timelines illustrative, not an offer or commitment; reserve, credit and loan-amount requirements vary by program and are subject to underwriting approval. Qualification here is still a documented underwriting decision, not the absence of one.

The pattern

Many paths. One door.

The income was real

$1.04M a year, sitting in the business account

The money was real

$3.2M, documented and seasoned

The stock was real

$1.8M vested, and never sold

The equity was real

$1.3M, in the home they already own

The reserves were real

counted and verified, before the payout lands

What failed was the measurement, not the borrower.

The standard

Common sense, fully documented.

Every borrower in this talk put real money down, carries strong credit, and holds verified reserves.

A good loan measures the right thing and then proves it. That is all any of these were.

Doma Loans

If you take one thing away

If you are buying

Bring two years of bank statements, not two years of returns.

If you prepare taxes

Your P&L letter can move a client's qualifying income by six figures.

If you sell real estate

Stop writing contingent offers. There is another way to structure the deal.

Gaurav Vaish

510.513.9369 / gvaish@domaloans.com

Gaurav Vaish, NMLS #2122782 / Doma Loans, Company NMLS #2649550 / Equal Housing Lender. All scenarios and figures in this presentation are illustrative and are not an offer, commitment or guarantee of credit. Program eligibility, rates and terms vary and are subject to underwriting approval. Not tax or legal advice.

We read more
than one line.

A no is a measurement, not a verdict.

Your money is real. Let's go document it.