- Seasoning usually means title seasoning, how long you've owned the property, not how old the loan is.
- 90 days or three months is the most common DSCR threshold. Before it, Roc Capital and Civic cap the loan at 80% of total cost basis.
- A second tier at six months is common: a 5-point LTV cut, a 70% cap, or no cash-out at all until then.
- Fannie Mae requires six months on title and a 12-month-old first mortgage for a conventional cash-out, with a delayed-financing exception for all-cash buyers.
- Refinancing a Lima One loan, including a fix-and-flip, into a Lima One rental loan waives seasoning entirely.
Seasoning is a clock, and lenders run two of them
DSCR cash-out refinance seasoning is the time a lender wants to pass between when you acquire or finance a property and when it will lend against the new appraised value. Until the clock runs out, most lenders size the loan on your cost, meaning purchase price plus documented rehab, or restrict cash-out altogether. That protects them from inflated appraisals on quick flips. For a BRRRR investor, it decides how much cash comes back out of the deal and when.
Title seasoning
How long you've owned the property, usually counted from the deed or purchase date to the new loan's closing. This is what most DSCR program sheets mean by seasoning. The end date varies: Fannie Mae counts to the new loan's disbursement date, while HomeBridge counts from deed date to note date. Ask which dates your lender uses, because a few days can put you on the wrong side of a threshold.
Loan seasoning
How old the mortgage being paid off is. Fannie Mae requires an existing first mortgage to be at least 12 months old, note date to note date, before it can be paid off with a cash-out refinance. DSCR lenders rarely publish a loan-seasoning rule, but ask if you're refinancing a loan that's only a few months old.
One more definition matters: what counts as cash-out. Easy Street Capital treats a refinance as cash-out when you receive more than $2,000 after paying off the old loan and closing costs; anything less is a rate-and-term refinance. Many lenders allow higher leverage on rate-and-term: LendingOne, Easy Street, Roc and Civic all publish 80% versus 75% for cash-out.
The published rules: 90 days, 3 months, 6 months, 12 months
| Lender or program | Seasoning rule | Before seasoning |
|---|---|---|
| Kiavi | Cash-out after 90 days of ownership, or on free-and-clear properties | Not published |
| LendingOne | 90-day seasoning for cash-out | Not published |
| Lima One | 3 months; waived on refinances of Lima One loans | In-house refinance from a Lima One fix-and-flip has no seasoning |
| Roc Capital, Civic | 90 days to use value instead of cost basis | 80% of total cost basis if owned under 3 months |
| Easy Street Capital (August 2025 guide) | Appraised value used at 6+ months | Under 3 months: loan at or below cost basis, 700+ FICO; 3–6 months: 70% LTV |
| eLEND (September 2026 matrix) | Full LTV at 6+ months | Owned under 6 months: maximum LTV cut by 5 points |
| HomeBridge DSCR Plus (July 2026) | Cash-out at 6+ months | Cash-out ineligible if owned under 6 months |
| Griffin Funding, Defy Mortgage | No-seasoning options advertised | Terms not published |
| Fannie Mae (conventional) | 6 months on title; first mortgage at least 12 months old | Delayed-financing exception for all-cash purchases |
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The pattern: 90 days to three months is the main DSCR threshold, a second tier at six months is common, and 12 months appears mainly in conventional lending. Lenders that advertise no seasoning exist, but they don't publish how they value a property you bought last month. Ask whether they'll use the appraisal or your cost.
Short-term rentals add a clock of their own. Lenders that refinance STRs on actual bookings, such as Easy Street, want trailing-twelve-month history, so a property bought as an Airbnb often waits a year to refinance on its real income, long after the ownership threshold has passed. Without that history, the lender may fall back to long-term market rent.
Inside the window, your cost is the ceiling
Cost basis is the purchase price plus documented renovation costs. Roc Capital and Civic publish the same rule: if you've owned the property for less than three months, the maximum loan is 80% of total cost basis. After 90 days they lend on value, up to 75% on a cash-out. Easy Street's guide holds the loan at or below cost basis in the first three months and requires a 700+ credit score.
Documentation decides your cost basis. Keep the settlement statement from the purchase, paid contractor invoices, receipts for materials, draw records from your rehab lender and the permits. Work you did yourself without receipts may not count at all.
A big value jump invites a second look
Seasoning rules exist because a fast refinance at a much higher value is what appraisal fraud usually looks like, so expect scrutiny even after the threshold. HomeBridge's DSCR Plus matrix (July 2026) orders its own automated valuation when a property owned under six months shows a value increase of more than 25% on a rate-and-term refinance. If that valuation differs from the appraisal by more than 10%, the loan is ineligible. eLEND applies the same logic to purchases: a second appraisal if the seller bought within 90 days and the price rose more than 10%, or within 91–180 days and rose more than 20%.
Make the jump easy to believe. Give the appraiser the scope of work, invoices, permits and before-and-after photos. A $200,000 house that's now worth $340,000 is plausible with $50,000 of documented work; without the paper, it looks like a markup.
Worked example: cash-out on cost vs. on value
You buy a distressed house for $200,000 cash and put $50,000 of documented rehab into it, for a total cost basis of $250,000. After the work it appraises at $340,000 and rents for $2,650 a month, with taxes of $290 and insurance of $125. The rate is an illustrative 7.50% on a 30-year fixed.
| Timing and rule | Max loan | PITIA | DSCR | Cash left in the deal |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Under 3 months: 80% of $250,000 cost (Roc/Civic) | $200,000 | $1,813 | 1.46 | $50,000 |
| Under 6 months: 75% less 5 points = 70% of $340,000 (eLEND) | $238,000 | $2,079 | 1.27 | $12,000 |
| After 90 days: 75% of $340,000 value (Roc/Civic) | $255,000 | $2,198 | 1.21 | None; $5,000 more than you put in |
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Waiting for the 90-day mark is worth $55,000 of extra proceeds here: $255,000 on value against $200,000 on cost. The rent still covers the larger payment at a 1.21 DSCR. The bigger loan does cost $385 more a month in principal and interest than the cost-basis loan, so check that the cash flow you keep still justifies the leverage.
If you financed the purchase instead of paying cash, weigh the carrying cost of waiting. At an assumed 10.25%, just under the 10.45% median reported for 2025 non-bank short-term investor loans, a $200,000 interest-only rehab loan costs about $1,708 a month. Two extra months of carry is a small price against $55,000 of proceeds, but run your own numbers.
If you must refinance inside the window, say because a rehab loan is about to mature, plan for a second refinance once the property seasons. Ask for a short prepayment penalty or none on the cost-basis loan. Under a standard 5-4-3-2-1 penalty, refinancing again at value in year one would cost 5% of the balance, or $10,000 on the $200,000 loan.
Delayed financing: cash buyers can refinance early, up to what they put in
Delayed financing lets an all-cash buyer take cash out soon after closing, but only up to the documented investment. Fannie Mae's version (Selling Guide B2-1.3-03, December 10, 2025) covers purchases within the past six months. It requires an arm's-length purchase, a settlement statement showing no mortgage financing, no liens on title, and documented sources of funds. The new loan can't exceed the documented investment in purchasing the property plus financed closing costs, points and prepaids, and it's still capped at the cash-out LTV: 75% for a one-unit investment property. Gift funds can't be paid back from the proceeds, and if you borrowed the cash against another asset, the proceeds must pay that loan down.
In the example above, conventional delayed financing would top out near the $200,000 purchase price plus closing costs, because Fannie's rule speaks to the investment in purchasing the property, not the rehab. If you bought in an LLC, Fannie counts the LLC's ownership time toward its six months but requires the property to be deeded to you personally before closing. On the DSCR side, Kiavi advertises restoring your cash position within six months of purchase, and Angel Oak lists delayed financing among its DSCR transaction types. Ask each how they treat rehab costs.
In-house refinances skip the clock
The cleanest way around seasoning is to refinance with the lender that financed the rehab. Lima One waives all seasoning requirements on refinances from Lima One loans, including repositioning a property from a Lima One fix-and-flip into a rental loan, and advertises up to 50% off the origination fee on that refinance. LendingOne's fix-to-rent program refinances up to 75% of after-repair value in-house, takes an extra 0.5% off the rate for borrowers who plan the refinance from the start, and adds one point to the payoff if you don't refinance with it.
The trade-off: you're committing to that lender's rental-loan pricing before you know what the market will offer at refinance time. Compare its rental term sheet with outside quotes before you sign the rehab loan, not after.
Plan the exit before you buy
- Pick the refinance lender first. Its seasoning rule sets your timeline, and its cost-basis rule sets your fallback if the rehab finishes early.
- Mark the dates: deed date, rehab completion, appraisal order and target closing. Count from whichever date your lender counts from.
- Ask how far ahead of the threshold the lender will order the appraisal, so closing lands just after it rather than just before.
- Keep every receipt. If you refinance inside the window, documented rehab is the only part of your work that counts.
- Price rate-and-term against cash-out. If you only need to retire a rehab loan, rate-and-term can carry higher leverage and better pricing. On one wholesale DSCR rate sheet dated October 19, 2026, cash-out with a 700+ score cost 1.000 point more at 70.01–75% LTV than a purchase or rate-and-term refinance. Ask whether the cost-basis cap still applies.
These are business-purpose loans for investment property that neither you nor your family will live in. If the refinance raises tax questions, such as how cash-out proceeds or a later sale are treated, talk to a CPA before you close.