wealthschema/archetypes/mb-03-real-estate-investor-dscr-portfolio-lender
MB-03Mortgage & LendingAccumulationhigh tax complexity

Real Estate Investor (DSCR / Portfolio Lender)

Active real estate investor with 3–10 rental properties, DSCR loans, LLC ownership, depreciation schedules, and 1031 exchange planning.

MB-03 is the property-cashflow underwriting archetype: 3–10 rental units financed on DSCR loans through LLC ownership, with Schedule E flowing through K-1s and depreciation schedules that drive most of the federal tax outcome.

Age Range
35–55
Net Worth
$1M–$5M
Cohort
Mortgage & Lending

About this archetype

MB-03 exists because DSCR-loan origination is a distinct underwriting regime — the borrower's personal DTI is a screening factor, not the deciding one. Lenders qualify the property's debt-service-coverage ratio (typically 1.0–1.25x minimum), not the W-2 income of the guarantor. That carries downstream effects across the testing surface: TRID and the QM/ATR rule do not apply to business-purpose loans on non-owner-occupied property, ECOA still does in a modified form, HMDA reporting differs, and Reg Z disclosures are largely off the table. Tax surfaces are denser: IRC §469 passive activity loss rules with the real-estate-professional exception, depreciation recapture under §1250 (unrecaptured §1250 gain taxed at up to 25%), §1031 like-kind exchanges with the 45/180-day timelines and qualified-intermediary requirements, and IRC §199A QBI deduction on rental activity that rises to a §162 trade-or-business (the safe-harbor in Rev. Proc. 2019-38 is the test most software gets wrong).

The structural story is a household with a healthy W-2 or active-business income (median ~$349k) and a much larger balance sheet driven by leveraged real estate. Median net worth is $3.2M with most of it in investable / property assets (median $1.77M investable, $1.23M liquid). Properties are held in single-purpose LLCs for liability and lender-pool reasons; the borrower personally guarantees the DSCR debt but the title is in the LLC, which means transfer-on-death, due-on-sale clause carve-outs, and Garn-St. Germain protections must all be modeled. Cash-out refinances against appreciated rentals are how the portfolio scales.

MB-03 is intentionally narrower than P-04 (Real Estate Investor in the accumulation-peak cohort): P-04 may include 1031-rich passive owners, syndication LPs, and family-owned long-term holds; MB-03 is specifically the DSCR-loan-financed, LLC-owned, active landlord whose underwriting and tax footprint differs from a syndication investor's. The DSCR-loan choice is the diagnostic feature — without it, the household belongs in P-04.

Defining characteristics

  • DSCR loan
    Underwriting based on property cash flow (DSCR ≥ 1.0–1.25x typical), not borrower DTI. Business-purpose carve-out from TRID, QM/ATR, and most Reg Z disclosures.
  • LLC-held properties
    Each property typically titled in a single-purpose LLC; Garn-St. Germain protection on intra-family LLC transfers and due-on-sale considerations are live in the corpus.
  • 1031 exchange
    IRC §1031 like-kind exchanges with the 45-day identification and 180-day completion windows, qualified-intermediary requirements, and basis-carryover treatment appear in the planning footprint.
  • Depreciation
    Straight-line 27.5-year residential depreciation, cost-segregation acceleration where deployed, and §1250 unrecaptured-gain treatment on disposition — recapture taxed at up to 25%.
  • Rental income
    Schedule E flows from each LLC (treated as disregarded entity or partnership) with passive-activity classification under IRC §469 — the real-estate-professional exception under §469(c)(7) is the planning lever.
  • Portfolio lender
    Loans typically held on portfolio lender balance sheets rather than sold to GSE pools; rate sheets, prepayment penalties (yield-maintenance, step-down), and cross-collateralization terms are non-standard.

Corpus signature

n = 13 households

Aggregated across the 13 MB-03 households in the shipped v3 corpus corpus. Numbers describe the corpus, not population claims.

Median income
$349k
p25–p75 $328k–$407k
Median net worth
$3.2M
mean $3.2M
Liquid net worth
$1.2M
median
Investable assets
$1.8M
median
Income distribution
$250k–315k
3
$315k–380k
5
$380k–450k
5
Net-worth distribution
$2.3m–2.9m
4
$2.9m–3.5m
5
$3.5m–4.1m
4
Goals across the corpus
Retirement13 / 13
Education funding10 / 13
Debt payoff7 / 13
Home purchase3 / 13
Emergency fund1 / 13
Liability composition
Credit cards13 / 13
Mortgages10 / 13
Student loans7 / 13
Auto loans4 / 13
  • 10 of 13 (77%) are homeowners; the remainder rent.
  • CA, TX, IL account for 7 of 13 households — 54% of the corpus.
  • Median adult-member age is 49 (range 36–57 across primaries and spouses).
  • 10 of 13 (77%) carry one or more dependents.
  • Married filing jointly is the dominant filing status (11 of 13).

Representative household

MB-03-seed-3
Michelle M.Married filing jointly·San Francisco-Oakland-Berkeley, CA

Michelle and James anchor the lower-net-worth quartile of MB-03 — finance plus real-estate-professional income, $2.4M net worth, and only $30k of personal liabilities because the rental-property debt sits inside the LLC wrappers and doesn't show on the personal balance sheet. They are the file that breaks net-worth aggregators and personal-DTI calculators that fail to reach into the K-1s and Schedule E entities; the 'real underwriting' is property-level DSCR plus the §469(c)(7) real-estate-professional election that lets the spouse's rental losses offset W-2 income. Retirement and education funding are off track because cash is being recycled into property acquisition, not 401(k) contributions.

Combined income
$348,951
Net worth
$2,416,562
Liquid NW
$1,080,404
Ages
48 / 49
Top goals on this household
Retirement
$5,695,800
Education funding
$738,728
Home purchase
$262,562

Schema fields covered

Every MB-03 household ships with — at minimum — these JSON fields populated. The full schema is documented in the data set you purchase.

members[].age
income.combined_gross
net_worth.total
filing_status
accounts.taxable.lots[].acquisition_date
accounts.taxable.lots[].cost_basis
accounts.taxable.lots[].unrealized_pnl
taxes.wash_sale_flags

Who builds against this archetype

Portfolio-lender LOS platforms and DSCR-loan origination shops use MB-03 to test property-cashflow underwriting flows that personal-DTI engines don't exercise — DSCR floor logic, gross-rent multiplier, vacancy reserve, and prepayment-penalty schedules. Tax-software teams use it for IRC §469 passive-activity loss tracking across multiple Schedule E entities, §1031 deferral and basis-carryover modeling, depreciation-schedule generation including §1250 recapture on disposition, and the §199A QBI safe-harbor decision under Rev. Proc. 2019-38. Wealth-platform teams use it for the LLC-titled-asset reconciliation problem — net-worth aggregators routinely miss assets held inside investor entities, and this corpus surfaces that failure mode directly.

Testing scenarios this corpus is calibrated for

  • 01DSCR origination underwriting — property NOI computation, DSCR floor (1.0–1.25x), interest-only versus fully-amortizing comparisons, and prepayment-penalty schedules (yield-maintenance, 5-4-3-2-1 step-down).
  • 02IRC §1031 like-kind exchange modeling — 45-day identification, 180-day completion, qualified-intermediary fund flow, and basis-carryover into replacement property.
  • 03Schedule E aggregation across multiple single-purpose LLCs with proper basis tracking and passive-activity loss carryforward under IRC §469.
  • 04§199A QBI deduction safe-harbor under Rev. Proc. 2019-38 — 250-hour rental services threshold and separate-books-and-records requirement.
  • 05Depreciation and §1250 unrecaptured-gain modeling on disposition, including cost-segregation acceleration and bonus-depreciation phase-down.
  • 06Cash-out refinance modeling against appreciated rental equity, including DSCR re-underwriting and tax-basis impact on the refinanced property.

Edge cases and what's not in this corpus

MB-03 is the DSCR-loan, LLC-owned, active-landlord cut of real-estate investing. Households whose real-estate exposure is primarily through syndication LP interests, opportunity-zone funds, or large family-held long-term holds belong in P-04, which is the broader accumulation-peak real-estate-investor archetype. Pre-IPO concentrated equity holders who happen to own one rental belong in A-06 or P-01, not MB-03. Distressed rental portfolios — DSCR loans in default, properties underwater — are an edge of MB-02 rather than MB-03, although the disclosure regimes diverge sharply because business-purpose loans lack the consumer-protection perimeter. Real-estate-professional-status households where the W-2 spouse drives most income but the §469(c)(7) election sits with the lower-earning spouse may also surface adjacent A-04 or SB-01 patterns.

Calibration notes

Income, leverage, and property-count bands during v3 synthesis were anchored to IRS SOI tabulations of Schedule E filers and Federal Reserve Flow of Funds residential-investment statistics, with state concentration tilted toward CA / TX / IL to surface high-cap-rate versus low-cap-rate market behavior. The corpus assumes residential 1–4 unit DSCR loans; commercial multifamily and CMBS-financed deals are out of scope. Per CLAUDE.md §9 the v3 corpus is FROZEN — the priors above describe synthesis intent, not auditable distribution fits. DSCR rate sheets and prepayment-penalty terms are realistic in shape but not tied to a specific portfolio-lender snapshot.

How this differs from related archetypes

Frequently asked questions

What does the MB-03 archetype represent?+

MB-03 — Real Estate Investor (DSCR / Portfolio Lender) represents active landlords with 3–10 rental units financed on DSCR loans through single-purpose LLCs. It is the archetype for property-cashflow underwriting, Schedule E aggregation, IRC §469 passive-activity loss tracking, §1031 exchanges, and §199A QBI safe-harbor testing.

How does MB-03 differ from P-04 (Real Estate Investor)?+

P-04 is the broader accumulation-peak real-estate-investor archetype and can include syndication LPs, family-held long-term holds, and passive owners. MB-03 is the narrower DSCR-loan, LLC-owned, active-landlord cut where the underwriting regime and LLC-titled balance-sheet structure are the diagnostic features.

What income and net-worth range does MB-03 cover?+

The 13 shipped MB-03 households have a combined gross income median of $348,951 (25th–75th: $327,996–$406,724) and a median net worth of $3.2M with median investable assets of $1.77M. Most of the balance sheet sits inside LLC wrappers rather than on the personal balance sheet.

Are §1031 exchanges and depreciation recapture modeled?+

Yes — the household profiles support modeling of 45/180-day §1031 timelines with qualified-intermediary fund flow, basis-carryover, and §1250 unrecaptured-gain treatment at disposition. Specific exchange sequences are downstream computations against the household data, not pre-baked attributes.

Do DSCR loans show up on the personal balance sheet?+

Personally guaranteed but titled in the LLC; the corpus reflects this by carrying low personal liabilities relative to the rental-property leverage held inside the LLC wrappers. Net-worth aggregators that don't traverse K-1s and entity-level Schedule Es will under-state the household's real leverage.

Is the MB-03 corpus regenerable?+

No. The shipped v3 corpus is frozen and not regenerable from current code (drift confirmed 2026-05-09). Improvements land in a future v4 release with per-archetype golden fixtures in CI.

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Formation
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Preservation
Distribution
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