How New City Financial underwrites mixed-use financing
Mixed-use is one of the harder asset classes to slot into a conventional loan box, because a single building can pair ground-floor retail or commercial space with apartments overhead — and most banks want to force it into either a purely commercial or purely residential bucket. New City Financial underwrites the property as what it actually is: a blended income stream. We qualify the loan on the building's combined net operating income and its debt-service coverage ratio (DSCR) rather than your personal tax returns, so the residential rent roll and the commercial leases are weighed together as one cash-flow picture. Deals that clear a 1.0 DSCR or better on that blended income are our core business, which is what allows an investor, a partnership, or an LLC to finance a mixed-use asset without the multi-year W-2 income documentation a traditional bank would demand.
The two income types actually complement each other in underwriting. The apartments above tend to deliver steady, staggered residential occupancy, while the storefronts below usually carry longer commercial leases at higher rents — so a vacancy in one part of the building rarely sinks the whole property's coverage. On terms, New City Financial lends up to 75% of value, on loan amounts from $75,000 to $50 million, with a 500 FICO floor and closings in under three weeks when title and third-party reports move on schedule. Fixed-rate structures over 3, 8, and 30 years — with no balloon payments — give you a debt cost you can hold steady against while you manage two different tenant bases. We work with investors across 40-plus states, and any rates shown on this site are illustrative only; your actual pricing depends on the asset, the market, your leverage, and your experience.
Mixed-use deals we finance
The mixed-use properties we finance run the familiar main-street and urban-corridor formats: retail or restaurant space on the ground floor with apartments above, storefront commercial paired with professional office suites, and live/work buildings where the ownership and the tenancy overlap. Value-add is a natural fit here — buying an under-leased corner building, refreshing the storefronts, re-tenanting the commercial bays, and stabilizing the residential units above is exactly the kind of business plan our financing is built to support. Owner-occupied mixed-use is eligible as a business-purpose loan when your operating business takes the commercial portion of a building it owns while the upper floors stay leased to tenants.
Because every loan we write is business-purpose, we work with investors and business owners rather than consumer homebuyers, and we do not finance primary residences even when a property happens to include apartments. As a commercial lending firm, the uses we see most are acquisition, rate-and-term refinance to replace a maturing or higher-cost loan, and cash-out refinance to pull equity for the next purchase or a capital-improvement budget spanning both the retail and residential sides. If you are trying to decide whether a specific mixed-use building pencils, the quickest path is a short conversation about the rent roll — both the commercial leases and the residential units — the in-place NOI, and your plan for the asset.
Getting a mixed-use deal ready for a quick close
The fastest mixed-use closings start with a clear picture of the building's income. Because we underwrite the blended cash flow, the single most useful document is a current rent roll that lists both the commercial leases on the ground floor and the residential units above — the rent, the lease start and end dates, and any vacancies. Alongside it, trailing operating statements let us confirm the net operating income and test it against a 1.0 DSCR or better. Since the loan is business-purpose and qualified on the asset, you are not assembling years of W-2s or personal tax returns; the property's own numbers carry the file, which is a large part of why title work and third-party reports — rather than income verification — tend to set the timeline. When those reports move on schedule, closings in under three weeks are realistic even on a two-income building.
From there the structure is straightforward. New City Financial is a commercial lending firm rather than a bank, and every mixed-use loan is written for a business purpose: investors, partnerships, and LLCs holding the asset, or an owner-occupant whose operating business takes the commercial space while tenants fill the floors above. We do not lend against primary residences, even when a mixed-use property includes apartments. Leverage runs up to 75% of value on loan amounts from $75,000 to $50 million, with a 500 FICO floor and fixed-rate terms over 3, 8, and 30 years that carry no balloon payments, so the debt cost stays predictable across a hold that spans two different tenant bases. We work with investors across 40-plus states. Any rates shown on this site are illustrative only; your actual pricing depends on the asset, the market, your leverage, and your experience.
