FHA, conventional or VA: which loan fits a home with a rental on it?
All three buy a home with up to four units that you live in. Start with the unit count: FHA adds no extra test on a duplex and tests the rent on three or four. Conventional (Fannie Mae's rules) skips that test and asks for more cash after closing. VA can need no down payment.
WHAT MOST PEOPLE ARE NEVER TOLD
FHA's rent test starts at the third unit. A duplex has no such test under FHA, and a conventional loan has none at any size up to four units.
FHA and conventional can both add 75 percent of the other units' rent to your income. Here is what each loan asks for.
- FHA: on three or four units, the appraiser's market rent for every unit, yours included, less at least a quarter, must cover the whole payment. That is the self-sufficiency test. You also need three months of payments left after closing.
- Conventional (Fannie Mae's rules): no rent test on the home. It asks you to show what you pay for housing now before it counts the rent. Its software asks for six months of payments left after closing, on a duplex too.
- VA, if you have the benefit: up to four units, and it can need no down payment. FHA's test does not apply. VA and the lender set their own income standards.
Each loan's down payment is on the programs page.
GOOD TO KNOW
These are the programs' own rules, and lenders add theirs, so the same application can get a different answer from a second lender. An FHA pre-approval is about you, so on a triplex or fourplex have the home's rent checked against FHA's test before you offer.
Yours is a little different. They all are.
Tell us what you are looking at and what you are trying to do. We answer with the numbers on your situation.
Free. No credit pull.
WHERE THIS COMES FROM
- HUD Handbook 4000.1 (revised August 12, 2026): self-sufficiency test, II.A.1.b.iv(B)(3)(c); rental income, II.A.4.c.xii(I); reserves, II.A.4.d.i(C)
- Fannie Mae Selling Guide B3-4.1-01, Minimum Reserve Requirements
- Fannie Mae Selling Guide B3-3.8-01, General Rental Income Information (September 2, 2026)
- Fannie Mae Selling Guide B3-3.8-02, Rental Income from the Subject Property (September 2, 2026)
- VA.gov, Purchase loan (last updated January 7, 2026)
- VA.gov, VA home loan entitlement and limits (last updated August 12, 2025)
- Series Homes analysis of 2025 HMDA data (FFIEC HMDA Data Browser), run November 11, 2026: home-purchase applications and loans on two-to-four unit homes the buyer will live in, by loan type. Share turned down = denied / (originated + approved but not accepted + denied). Counted from the rows the Data Browser downloads: it has no filter for who will live in the home.
Researched and written by Series Homes. Checked against its sources on . Lending rules change. This page is general information, not a loan offer or legal or tax advice.