Plain-English guidance on physician mortgages, written for people who do not have time to become mortgage experts.
A signed, non-contingent employment contract can carry a mortgage before you have worked a day at the new job. This page covers what the contract has to say, how far ahead of your start date agency rules and physician programs will close, which parts of your pay actually count, and how much cash you need to cover the months before payroll begins.
Most physician mortgage programs accept residents and fellows, but the trainee loan ceiling can run one quarter of the same bank’s attending limit. This page covers what a lender will actually count while you are in training, and when buying during residency is the wrong decision.
Your student loan balance is not what decides your mortgage. The monthly payment your lender counts is, and Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, FHA and physician loan programs each calculate it differently.
On most physician loans, zero down is a tier with a loan cap, not a blanket offer. Here is what the zero down tier covers, what cash you still need, and when putting money down is smarter.
Take the physician mortgage when your constraint is cash, and the conventional mortgage when your constraint is cost. Here is the full comparison, including the four situations where conventional financing is the better deal.
There is no single physician mortgage rate to look up, and any number printed on a page is stale within a week. This guide covers the pricing mechanics instead: portfolio versus agency execution, the inputs that move a quote, rate versus APR on a program with no PMI, and a step-by-step method for making two Loan Estimates genuinely comparable.
Six things decide whether you qualify for a physician mortgage: your degree, your training stage, your credit, your DTI, your employment documentation and the property. Here is what lenders actually publish about each.
A physician mortgage is a portfolio loan banks keep on their own books, which lets them waive the down payment, skip mortgage insurance, lend on an employment contract and treat medical school debt differently.
