If you run the company, last year’s return may understate what the business produces, or it may be the cleanest picture an automated engine will accept. Depreciation, vehicle write-offs, delayed distributions and a decision to leave profit in the company all change the number a conventional desktop underwriter sees. The statewide map of those paths lives on the self-employed explainer. The bank-statement page explains deposit-based qualification. This article stays with Raleigh: which Triangle businesses we see, how Wake’s levy shows up in the payment and what to send so we do not guess at your books.
NCDOR’s FY 2026-27 tables list Wake County at 53.71 cents and the City of Raleigh at 37.2 cents. Combined, a city parcel is billed $0.9091 for every $100 shown on the card. The business-owner illustration on this page uses a $410,000 assessment, which produces about $3,727 a year, near $311 a month when that tax is escrowed and no extra district appears. That worked example is different from the $365,000 first-time illustration and the $320,000 refinance illustration already published for this county. A Raleigh postal city outside the municipal limits should not use the 37.2-cent piece.
We price files from suite 1933 at 128 South Tryon Street in Charlotte (Company NMLS 2468711). Uploads are enough to start. If a partner draws W-2 wages from a hospital, a university or a Research Triangle employer while you run the company, both stories belong in the first stack of documents.
Triangle businesses we see, and why their books do not all read the same
Independent consultants who invoice through an LLC, physicians and therapists who own a practice, tradespeople with crews, franchise operators and contractors who sell services to state agencies or to Research Triangle firms all buy houses in Wake County. Some of those companies produce two clean years of returns that already support the payment after ordinary add-backs. Some produce returns that look thin because the owner is doing what a good operator does: investing back into the company or taking write-offs the tax code allows.
A software contractor who takes a mix of W-2 wages from one client and 1099 income from another is not the same file as a restaurateur whose return shows depreciation on equipment. A realtor whose income arrives in uneven closings is not the same file as a CPA with a stable practice. Tell us what the company does and how you pay yourself. A one-line description such as “I own a business” does not give an underwriter anything to read.
If the business is new, say how new. Recently self-employed files sometimes fit a private-investor path rather than an agency path. The non-QM page sketches that category. We will not invent a required number of years in business and call it Wake County’s rule.
When tax returns are enough, and when we look at another path
If the returns already support the payment after ordinary add-backs the conventional guides permit, we will show you that quote first. It usually prices better. If the returns do not get you there, a deposit-based path is often the next stop. The method for reading those deposits already lives on the bank-statement page, so this article will not repeat it.
Programs that turn investment balances into a qualifying monthly amount are another option when the buyer is cash-rich and the return is modest. They appear more often after a company sale, or when earnings were left invested instead of taken as salary. Each investor writes its own conversion math, and that math is not published here.
FHA and VA remain available when occupancy and eligibility support them and when the documentation path those programs require can be met. Self-employment does not automatically push a file into a private-investor program. It only changes which documents we collect first.
Wake County's levy, Cary comparisons and postal cities that sit outside Raleigh
Business owners who last operated in a lower-levy town, or who borrowed a Cary payment example, are often surprised by Raleigh’s combined $0.9091 stack. Cary’s municipal pair lives on its refinance page and is not this pair. A Raleigh mailing address can sit in another town or in unincorporated Wake. We price the parcel itself.
Association dues on downtown lofts, North Hills condos or newer planned sections sit beside the tax line. A building that looks workable on principal and interest can feel tight once the due and a realistic insurance quote are included. Mention the building early if attached housing is part of the search, because a project review can slow a file that would have been simple as a detached house.
Wake last reappraised in 2024, so many assessed values already show a newer market than an owner who last bought here ten years ago might expect. A purchase escrow reads the notice in force now. Later reappraisal cycles can move the card again.
Estimated taxes, distributions and a spouse who still receives a W-2
Owners who pay large quarterly estimates sometimes look at their checking account and feel poorer than the return will later show, or the reverse. Lending income is not the same thing as last quarter’s cash balance. Bring the returns, the K-1s or owner-distribution records and year-to-date statements so we can see both the profit the company produced and what you actually took out.
If a spouse or partner earns W-2 wages at a hospital, a university, a state agency or a Research Triangle firm, that income can stabilize a file whose business returns are lumpy. It can also raise questions if that job is new, seasonal or about to change. Include those stubs in the first package rather than adding them after an offer is already written. A dual-income file that arrives with only the business side documented is the usual reason we have to pause a Triangle pre-approval and ask for another round of papers.
Gifts from family, delayed invoices and a large receivable the company hopes to collect next month are not interchangeable with wages. Tell us which dollars are already in hand. A pre-approval that assumes an invoice will pay before closing is a pre-approval with a hole in it.
Year-end tax decisions and a closing date that does not wait for your CPA
Self-employed buyers sometimes want to close after a year-end distribution, after a quarterly estimate or after a CPA has finished a return that is still being extended. Lenders work on the contract calendar, not on tax-season convenience. If a large distribution or a delayed return is part of how you plan to prove income or cash, say so at the start so we do not build a letter around documents that will not exist until after the seller’s desired closing date.
Extensions happen. They are ordinary. They still have to be disclosed, and the investor has to accept the documentation that exists today. A file that needs last year’s return, and that return is on extension, is a timing conversation we should have before a contract goes out on a competitive in-town street. The same is true if a large year-end distribution is how you plan to show cash; that money needs to be in an account and documented, not merely promised on a CPA’s forecast. The same honesty applies to a receivable the company hopes a customer will pay next week; unpaid invoices are not cash to close. Mention those items when you send the first package so the letter is built on money that already exists. A tidy application that arrives complete is faster than a letter we have to rebuild after an invoice or an extension becomes visible. That is especially true in a month when you are also preparing quarterly estimates and do not want two document requests landing at once.
A house to live in is not the building the company occupies
Business owners sometimes ask whether they can finance a live-work property, a building that contains the practice, or a house they will partly use as an office, on the same letter they received for a plain residence. Occupancy and property type decide that, not the fact that you own a company. A primary residence with a home office is usually still a residential file. A building whose main use is the business is a different property type and may not belong on this page at all.
Tell us how the space will actually be used. We would rather redirect you early than issue a residential letter that an appraiser later reads as a commercial property. If the company will rent space from you inside the house, say that too, because that rent story can change how an investor reads the file.
Offers, due diligence and how we work a Wake business-owner file
A Wake County offer still includes this state’s negotiated due-diligence sum at the beginning of the contract. If you leave without a covered reason, that sum typically stays with the seller. A business owner who treats it as optional because the company can “be flexible” still loses the money if the books later fail to support the loan originally hoped for.
Share a draft offer before financing language is locked. Brand-new subdivisions toward the edge of the metro, condos near campus or downtown and houses that need work each change the language the contract should carry. We call out financing problems. The contract itself is led by your agent and by the closing attorney.
Send returns or a complete statement run, a brief note about the company’s work, a realistic cash number and the parts of Wake County still on your list. We will select a documentation path and issue a letter that uses a Raleigh or wider-Wake tax assumption. A local Realtor already under contract with you will be kept in the thread. Signing happens at a North Carolina attorney’s table.
What self-employed Triangle clients have written
Triangle company owners posted the public comments collected below after closing with this brokerage.
Where the Raleigh self-employed figures come from
Wake’s 53.71-cent county line, Raleigh’s 37.2-cent city line, the $0.9091 combined stack and the year of the last countywide reappraisal (2024) come from NCDOR’s published tables. The $3,727 example uses a $410,000 assessment, different from the first-time page’s $365,000 illustration and the refinance page’s $320,000 illustration. Program mechanics live on the self-employed explainer, the bank-statement page and the non-QM page. We do not invent a required number of years in business, a statement-month minimum or a credit cutoff.