For housing near Auburn University, can roommate payments be part of our family budget without assuming a lender will count them as qualifying income?

DIRECT ANSWER

Source-qualified general planning or verification guidance for Auburn University housing decisions. National mortgage rules apply only within the stated programme and do not establish university benefits, local prices, an individual loan approval or permission for a particular property. Keep the limitations and dates in the answer; use actual documents for the decision.

Keep two separate figures: what the family might collect from roommates and what the lender has expressly approved as qualifying income. For the family budget, test an entire period with no roommate payments and include the costs of a vacancy or missed payment rather than committing all cash to the best-case forecast. For qualification, disclose the actual occupancy and rental plan and ask for a written program-specific determination. Fannie Mae's second-home rule allows identified rental income only when it is not used to qualify and all other second-home requirements, including borrower occupancy, are met. That exception does not establish permission to rent a particular Auburn property or a rule for every loan program.