Can DACA recipients get a mortgage?

What the guidance actually says

Agency guidance permits lending to borrowers who are lawfully present in the United States and hold valid employment authorisation. DACA recipients with current work authorisation meet that description. Nothing in the guidance singles them out for exclusion.

What does exist is a patchwork of lender overlays — extra conditions individual institutions layer on top of agency rules to simplify their own underwriting. An overlay is a business policy, not a regulation. One lender's overlay says no; another lender's does not.

Why you were probably declined

Three things usually explain a decline that had nothing to do with your file:

• The loan officer had never worked a DACA file and defaulted to no rather than research it.
• The institution's internal overlay excluded the category outright, regardless of the borrower.
• Documentation of work authorisation was requested incorrectly, then treated as missing.

What you will need

The file looks like any other file, plus proof of work authorisation. Valid employment authorisation documentation, a Social Security number, and the ordinary income, asset and credit documentation every borrower provides.

Being a broker rather than a bank is the operative difference here. When one lender's overlay blocks a file, we move it to a lender whose overlay does not — the same file, a different desk.

Before you apply again

Ask any lender one direct question before you hand over documents: have you closed a DACA loan in the last year? The answer tells you whether you are dealing with practice or theory, and it will save you a credit pull at an institution that was never going to approve you.