If someone told you DACA recipients can't buy a home, they were wrong. Conventional and FHA options exist depending on documentation - and as a licensed broker, our job is knowing which lenders work with files like yours.
A DACA mortgage is not a special product with an asterisk. It is a regular home loan where one part of the file - your work-authorization documentation - gets discussed alongside the things every lender reviews: income, credit and the property. Both conventional and FHA loan options exist for DACA recipients depending on documentation.
What trips people up is that not every loan officer has had this conversation before, and lenders differ in what documentation they accept. That is a lender-selection problem, not a you problem. Fair housing law protects every applicant regardless of national origin; qualification is about your file, period.
You do not need all of this before you call - but gathering it early makes everything after faster.
Your current Employment Authorization Document (EAD). Lenders will want to see your work authorization as part of the documentation conversation.
DACA recipients with work authorization have an SSN, which keeps the identification side of the file standard.
Recent pay stubs, W-2s or tax returns - the same income story every applicant tells, showing steady earnings.
Know where your credit stands. A shorter history is workable; knowing it early tells us what to strengthen and when.
A short call about your EAD, SSN, income and credit. We map which programs and lenders fit your file.
We package your file and get you a real preapproval so sellers take your offer seriously.
You find the home; your agent negotiates knowing the financing side is already sorted.
We shepherd the loan through underwriting to the closing table and hand you the keys.
Plenty of DACA recipients have walked into a bank, heard a flat no, and assumed that was the law talking. It wasn't - it was that bank's rulebook. Lenders vary widely in what documentation they accept and how familiar their underwriters are with DACA files.
As a broker we compare across many lenders and put your file in front of ones that already work with employment-authorization documentation. Exploring the wider immigrant-homeownership picture? Start at Immigration.Mortgage, see VisaMortgages.com for work-visa paths, or read about ITIN loans for family members without an SSN.
One phone call tells you where your file stands today and what to gather next. No cost, no obligation, and no judgment - just the documentation conversation you have been waiting for.