Refinancing as a 1099 Earner in 2025: The Lenders That Get It

The setup

New American Funding keeps showing up in the top of our spreadsheet for 1099-income refi, and after pulling fresh quotes against the same control file three weeks running, the pattern is clear. If you've earned 1099 income for 2+ years, you have multiple legitimate paths to refinance — at standard rates. Most of those paths are buried inside specialist desks.

How we pulled the numbers

This is a controlled scenario: $410,000 1099-income refi on a single-family in California, owner-occupied, 72% LTV, 740 FICO. Quotes captured August 19–26, 2025. We requested formal Loan Estimates wherever a lender would issue one, and used published rate sheets where they would not.

Side-by-side rate comparison

Lender	Rate	APR	1099 Path	Doc Friction
New American Funding	6.85%	6.95%	Standard 2-yr 1099	Low
AmeriSave	6.95%	7.05%	2-yr 1099 + bank statements	Medium
Rocket Mortgage	7.10%	7.25%	2-yr 1099, strict	High
Bank-statement non-QM	7.30%	7.45%	12-mo bank statements	Low

On this representative scenario, the spread between best and worst APR is 0.50 APR points — which compounds into roughly $36,800 over the life of a 30-year loan. Your numbers will not match ours exactly. The pattern, however, is what to watch.

Where New American Funding actually wins

1. 2-year 1099 history opens conventional pricing — If you have 2 years of stable 1099 income, you can usually qualify for conventional pricing. Don't default to non-QM unless you have to.

2. Specialist desks handle 1099 properly — NAF, Cardinal, and Carrington all have desks that don't treat 1099 income as exotic.

3. Bank-statement programs as backup — If 1099 docs don't work, 12-month bank statements at a 0.25–0.50 premium is a workable Plan B.

Where it quietly costs you

1. Some lenders will reject 1099 outright — Better and most online disruptors don't underwrite 1099 income well. Skip them for this scenario.

2. 1099 + multiple income streams = complexity — Multiple 1099s, side W-2, gig income — the underwriting calculus gets harder. Specialist desks handle it; generalists don't.

3. Year-end timing matters — Refinancing in Q1 of a new tax year means lenders want updated tax returns. Q3 refis are usually cleaner.

What we'd do

We'd anchor on New American Funding's Loan Estimate, then shop two more — one online disruptor, one local. The negotiation alone usually moves your final rate 0.125–0.25 percentage points. That's not table stakes; that's the entire reason to read articles like this one.