How do day traders or self-employed investors qualify for a mortgage with no W-2?

Bank statement loans qualify on deposit history; asset-qualifying / asset-depletion loans qualify on liquid balances. Both skip W-2 and tax returns.

Day traders, crypto traders, and other self-funded earners face a real mortgage problem: capital gains income is taxed but doesn't look like "income" to a conventional lender, and many active traders have inconsistent year-over-year P&L. Non-QM solves this. Bank statement loans use 12 or 24 months of deposit history to calculate a qualifying monthly income figure - personal accounts use 100% of deposits, business accounts apply a 50-75% expense ratio. If you trade through an LLC and route gains through a business account, this works cleanly. Asset-qualifying (also called asset depletion) is even better for traders with significant capital: the lender takes your verified liquid asset balance and divides by 60-120 months to produce qualifying monthly income. With $500K in a brokerage account divided by 60 months = $8,333/mo qualifying. No income docs at all. No DTI calculation in the traditional sense. Stocks count at 70-80% of balance, retirement accounts at 70% if accessible without penalty, cash at 100%. You don't have to liquidate - the assets stay invested. Rate premium vs conventional: ~0.5-1.0% higher than agency, but the same as DSCR.