Mortgages by buyer type: what changes when it is you

The same federal rules and the same loan programs read differently depending on who is borrowing. 13 buyer profiles, each with the programs that fit, the underwriting that applies, and every major federal regulation explained for that situation.

• First-time home buyers — You have never had a mortgage, so every disclosure is new and every fee looks normal. The programs below were built for you — the rules below are what keep the process honest.
• Conventional loan borrowers — You have bought before, so the process feels familiar — but conforming pricing, the sale of your current home and the loss of first-time buyer waivers change the math this time around.
• Veterans and service members — A VA guaranty removes the down payment and the mortgage insurance, but it adds its own rules — funding fee, residual income, property standards, refinance limits — and the SCRA reshapes what a lender may do during service.
• Self-employed borrowers — Your qualifying income is not what your business brings in — it is what survives the lender’s cash-flow analysis of your tax returns, and that one number drives everything else.
• Real estate investors — An investment property loan is priced on the property and the exit, not on your paycheck — and most consumer mortgage protections quietly fall away with it.
• Retirees and senior borrowers — Age cannot be held against you, but income that no longer comes from a paycheck is documented differently — and reverse mortgages play by their own rulebook.
• Buyers with bad credit — A score in the 500s or low 600s narrows your programs, raises your price and makes the file manual — but it does not close the door, and federal law gives you tools the lender must honor.
• Foreign nationals and ITIN borrowers — Your immigration status decides which loan programs are open to you; your documents, not your passport, decide whether you get approved and at what price.
• Physicians and licensed professionals — A doctor loan swaps the usual 20% down or PMI for a relationship with one bank: the fine print lives in the rate, the ARM reset and the account you must open.
• Teachers, first responders and “hero” buyers — Occupation-based programs can cut the price or the down payment, but they come with occupancy commitments, funding limits and marketing that deserves a second look.
• Rural and USDA buyers — Outside the metro line, the cheapest path to a first home is often a USDA loan with nothing down — if the address, the household income and the well all pass.
• Condo and second-home buyers — Your credit and income are only half the file: on a condo the building gets underwritten too, and on a second home the occupancy story and the pricing add-ons decide the deal.
• Refinancing homeowners — You already own the home, so the question is no longer “can I buy” but “does the new loan beat the one I have” — and most of the rules are built around that single test.