LedgerYou Have Student Debt.
You Can Still Buy a Home.
We Guarantee It.
If you qualify under income-driven repayment, we find you a conforming loan — or we work for free until we do. No DTI guesswork. No automated rejections.
Why Conventional Lenders Say No —
And Exactly How We Say Yes
Every row below is an obstacle a real lender raised. Every answer on the right is the specific pathway we used to dismantle it.
Don't see your profile? Every borrower situation is unique.
Run your own numbers →Four Loan Products That
Recalculate Student Debt
Conventional lenders apply the strictest reading of the rules. We apply the correct one.
FHA Loan — IBR Actual Payment
Uses your actual income-driven repayment payment — even $0 — instead of the 1% rule. If your IBR payment is $210, that is what counts in your DTI.
Most impactful for nurses and educators on PSLF or SAVE plans where payments are below $300/mo.
Fannie Mae — 1% Student Loan Rule
If your loan is in deferment or forbearance, Fannie uses 1% of the outstanding balance as a monthly payment. For a $94K balance, that is $940 — vs. the $0 you are actually paying.
We move borrowers out of deferment and into IDR before application, converting the 1% rule to the actual payment calculation.
Freddie Mac — Exclusion Pathway
If someone else — an employer, a parent — has been making payments for 12+ months, Freddie Mac allows you to exclude that debt entirely from DTI calculation.
Particularly effective for attorney associates whose firms offer student loan assistance as a benefit.
VA Loan — Residual Income Method
VA loans use residual income (what you have left after all obligations) rather than a strict DTI ratio. This fundamentally changes the math for high-income borrowers with large debt loads.
Eligible veterans with $120K+ income and $140K in student debt can qualify where conventional products fail.
If we identify a viable pathway and you follow our process exactly, we find your approval — or we work for free until we do.
Applies to borrowers with income ≥ $58,000, student loans ≥ $40,000, and credit score ≥ 580. Full terms in the playbook.
"I had been told by three different lenders that my $102,000 in student loans made me unqualifiable. Ledger moved me onto the SAVE plan, recalculated my DTI at my actual $187 monthly payment, and had me in contract on a $385,000 home in Chicago 44 days later."
The Questions You've Been Afraid to Ask a Lender
These are real objections from borrowers we've worked with. Every answer includes the specific mechanism, not just reassurance.
Forbearance is actually where the 1% rule hurts most — and where we help most. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac require lenders to use 1% of your outstanding balance as a monthly payment when loans are deferred or in forbearance. On a $94,000 balance, that's $940/month added to your DTI before you've made a single payment. Our process moves you from forbearance into an income-driven repayment plan before the mortgage application begins. This converts the calculation from 1% ($940) to your actual IDR payment — often $150–$300 — reducing your effective DTI by 12–18 points. We walk you through the servicer call and the IDR application. It takes 7–14 days and it is the single highest-leverage step most borrowers can take.
No. Buying a home does not affect your PSLF eligibility or your qualifying payment count in any way. PSLF tracks your employment with a qualifying nonprofit or government employer and your consecutive qualifying payments on an IDR plan — neither of which is impacted by home ownership. In fact, many PSLF borrowers are ideal mortgage candidates because their IDR payments are low relative to income. We structure your mortgage application to reflect your actual IDR payment (often under $300/month) and your projected forgiveness date as a financial asset, not a liability. If your forgiveness date is within 10 years, some lenders will factor the removal of that debt payment into your future financial picture.
688 is not disqualifying — it is a starting point. FHA loans are accessible at 580 with 3.5% down and at 500 with 10% down. For conventional loans, 620 is the floor, and 680+ qualifies you for standard pricing. A thin file (short credit history, few accounts) is a separate issue from a low score, and it has specific solutions. Rapid rescore is a process where a lender requests expedited credit bureau updates after you take targeted actions — paying down a specific card below 30% utilization, adding an authorized user account with long history, correcting a reporting error. In 14–21 days, borrowers routinely see 15–30 point improvements. We identify the two or three highest-leverage actions for your specific file before you apply, so you enter the process with the strongest possible profile.
The calculators you have used are using the wrong inputs. Standard mortgage calculators use a full monthly payment for your student loans — typically 1% of the balance per month. If you are on an income-driven repayment plan, your actual payment is likely a fraction of that. When we substitute your actual IDR payment into the DTI calculation, a borrower who appears at 51% often recalculates to 36–40% — well within conforming loan guidelines. If you are not yet on an IDR plan, that is the first conversation we have. The SAVE plan, introduced in 2023, can cap payments at 5% of discretionary income for undergraduate loans, producing the lowest IDR payments in the program's history. We run the calculation for you using your actual loan servicer data and your W-2 income before you speak to any lender.
Private loans complicate the math but they do not end the conversation. Private loans cannot be enrolled in federal IDR programs, so lenders must use the actual payment — there is no workaround on that specific calculation. The strategy shifts to three areas: First, refinancing private loans at a lower interest rate to reduce the monthly payment itself. Second, if you have both federal and private loans, we isolate the federal portion into IDR to minimize that component while managing the private portion separately. Third, we target loan products with higher DTI thresholds — FHA allows up to 57% DTI with compensating factors like strong cash reserves or a co-borrower. The combination of these approaches resolves approximately 70% of private loan complications we encounter.
Still have a question specific to your situation? Talk to an advisor →
Download Your Student Debt Mortgage Playbook
The 28-page guide used by our advisors. It contains the exact IDR-to-DTI conversion tables, the specific Fannie/Freddie/FHA rules for student loans, and the pre-application checklist that has produced a 94% approval rate.
Use our stepped calculator to see if you pre-qualify in 3 minutes — no advisor call required.
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