--- title: "What Do You Need to Buy an Airbnb Property?" published: 2026-10-02T21:16:40.174Z updated: 2026-10-02T21:28:05Z read_time_minutes: 6 canonical: https://www.totalqualitylending.com/blog/what-you-need-to-buy-airbnb-property source: Total Quality Lending --- # What Do You Need to Buy an Airbnb Property? > The legal checks, cash and credit an Airbnb purchase takes, and how a DSCR loan or the Hybrid Investor Loan qualifies it without rental history. ![What do you need to buy an Airbnb property, and how a DSCR or Hybrid Investor Loan qualifies it with no rental history.](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/xd7hu67n/production/f11d8d5557f4f733709e79813dc879951c220621-1150x645.png) To buy an Airbnb property, you need a property where short-term rental is legal, a down payment of at least 15%, a credit score of 620 or higher, a rental projection that covers the payment, and a loan that counts that rent, such as the Hybrid Investor Loan or a debt service coverage ratio loan, or DSCR loan. ### Is short-term rental legal where you want to buy? Check this first, because it can end the deal before money does. Cities and counties regulate short-term rentals through permits, registration, zoning and occupancy taxes. A homeowners association, or HOA, can ban nightly rentals in its bylaws no matter what the city allows. So can a condo board. Airbnb puts that responsibility on the owner. Its help center tells hosts to follow local law, check HOA and co-op rules for restrictions on hosting, and look up local taxes and business license requirements before listing. The rules can get specific. Airbnb's responsible hosting page for Buffalo, New York, notes that the city requires short-term rental hosts to register, and owners who live outside Erie County must name a local agent. Before you make an offer, get answers to three questions. Does zoning allow short-term rental at this address? What permit or registration does it need? If there is an HOA, do its rules allow nightly guests? A property that can't legally rent by the night is a [long-term rental](/strategies/buy-and-hold) with nicer furniture, and the numbers you ran no longer apply. ### How much money do you need to buy an Airbnb? Start with the down payment. At Total Quality Lending, the Hybrid Investor Loan finances up to 85% of the purchase price and a DSCR loan finances up to 80%, so your down payment starts at 15% or 20%. Both are ceilings at the top credit tier, and not every file reaches them. Closing costs come next. Total Quality Lending charges one flat fee that covers underwriting and processing, with no points and no origination charge. Title, appraisal, insurance and prepaid taxes come on top, as they do on any purchase. Then budget for the costs a long-term rental never has. You furnish the place, down to the linens and the coffee maker. You pay the utilities, the internet, the cleaner between every stay, the platform fees and the occupancy taxes. Insurance needs its own look. Airbnb says the host damage protection in its AirCover program does not take the place of homeowners insurance, so ask your insurance agent directly whether your policy covers paying guests. Keep cash for the slow months, too. A beach market in February and a ski town in May still have a mortgage payment. ### Do you need Airbnb experience or rental history to get a loan? No. At Total Quality Lending, a short-term rental purchase qualifies on a projection, and the property needs no operating history. That holds on both the [DSCR loan](/learn/glossary/dscr-loan) and the Hybrid Investor Loan, so your first Airbnb qualifies the same way a fifth one would. The projection comes from market data. On a purchase, Total Quality Lending pulls an AirDNA report, which estimates nightly rates and occupancy from comparable listings near the property. The analysis comes before the application, at no cost, so you see whether the rent carries the payment before you commit to anything. ### Should you use a DSCR loan or the Hybrid Investor Loan? Learn one number before you pick a loan. The debt service coverage ratio divides the property's rent by its full monthly payment of principal, interest, taxes, insurance and any HOA dues. For example, $3,000 in projected monthly rent against a $2,500 payment is a ratio of 1.2. Above 1, the property pays its own way. Below 1, something else has to cover the gap. Total Quality Lending offers two [short-term rental loans](/strategies/short-term-rental) for an Airbnb purchase, and they split on that question of what covers the payment. The [Hybrid Investor Loan](/loans/hybrid-investor-loan) is the only program that counts both your personal income and the property's projected rent. That combination is why it stretches further than most investors expect, and it carries no private mortgage insurance. Your income can be documented without tax returns, and the minimum credit score is 620. If you earn a strong salary and still have room in your debt-to-income ratio, this is usually where to start. A [DSCR loan](/loans/dscr) ignores your income entirely and qualifies on the property's projected rent alone. There is no debt-to-income calculation and no personal income paperwork, and the minimum credit score is 640. If the property cash flows, the deal works. That matters most for two kinds of buyers: business owners whose tax returns understate what they earn, and investors whose second or third mortgage already filled their debt-to-income ratio. Your next property doesn't touch it. The trade between the two is worth seeing plainly. The less a loan relies on your personal income, the more cash it asks you to put down. And if a conventional loan would cost you less for the property you're buying, a good lender should tell you so. Total Quality Lending will. One more point on property type. Resort condos are where many Airbnb buyers look and where many lenders stop. Total Quality Lending funds condotels and non-warrantable condos. A building with 5 to 8 units is a different matter, because Total Quality Lending's program for those buildings does not allow short-term rental use or count short-term rental income. ### Is it a second home or an investment property? Plenty of buyers want to use the place a few weeks a year and rent it the rest. Decide which one it really is before you apply, because the loan follows the answer. A second home qualifies on your documented personal income, never on the property's rent, and you have to keep exclusive control of it. If a rental pool or a management company controls when the property is occupied, it no longer qualifies as a second home. If the plan is to rent it most of the year, finance it as an investment property. Investment property loans can carry a prepayment penalty that applies for a set window after closing, and some states restrict or bar it. If you might sell or refinance early, ask about it before you sign. ### Should you buy your Airbnb in an LLC? Total Quality Lending can close a purchase with both the loan and the title in your limited liability company, or LLC. Many lenders won't, or they make you take title personally and transfer it later. Whether buying in an LLC makes sense for you is a question for your attorney and CPA, not your lender. ### Who puts the pieces together? An Airbnb purchase runs through at least four people. The agent knows the listing, the lender knows the loan, the CPA knows the taxes and the property manager knows the cleaning schedule. Nobody owns the whole outcome. Everyone in this industry owns one piece and hands you the rest. We put the pieces together for you. At Total Quality Lending, that work starts before any application, with no charge for it. We run the deal analysis: rental projections, cash flow and DSCR and return modeling on the property you're considering, including the deals we'd tell you to pass on. We only lend in markets we'd invest in ourselves. Income pays for your life. Assets change your family's trajectory. If you have a property in mind, call (800) 304-1925 and bring the address. --- Canonical URL: https://www.totalqualitylending.com/blog/what-you-need-to-buy-airbnb-property Publisher: Total Quality Lending (NMLS #1933377)