You asked your lender about one of those physician loan programs. The ones your friends from graduate school used to buy houses before they had savings, with no mortgage insurance and nothing down.
The answer was no. Not for attorneys. Not for engineers. Not for architects or CPAs. You bill more than half the doctors on the street you are trying to buy on, and the program is closed to you because of the letters after your name.
That answer is only half right. A separate class of program finances graduate and post-graduate degree holders with no mortgage insurance at any loan-to-value, and qualifies you on future income from a fully executed contract. It is not the physician program. It is the one built for everybody the physician program leaves out, and almost nobody mentions it because almost nobody sells it.
What the program does
From CMG Financial's Graduate Advantage guidelines (NMLS #1820, revised 09/08/2026), the highlights are:
- Loan amounts up to $1,500,000
- Primary residence only
- No mortgage insurance regardless of loan-to-value
- Debt-to-income up to 50%
- Credit scores down to 720
- Non-warrantable condos may be considered
- All loans are considered full documentation
The eligibility matrix runs purchase and rate/term refinance only, to $1,500,000, at a 720 minimum score, 90% maximum loan-to-value and 90% maximum combined loan-to-value, with a 50% maximum debt-to-income. Combined loan-to-value is capped at 80% on non-warrantable condos and 85% on a two-unit property.
Qualifying income allows future income based on a fully executed contract, the same mechanism that makes physician programs work for residents.
Which degrees qualify
This is the gate, and it is specific. The graduate degree must be in one of the following areas:
Medical, Legal, Engineering, Architecture or Accounting.
Graduate (Masters) or post-graduate (PhD, MD) degrees are eligible. Bachelor degrees are ineligible. There is no interpretation available here; an undergraduate degree in engineering does not qualify, a Masters does.
You must provide a copy of the graduate degree, or a letter from the school on school letterhead containing the anticipated graduation date and the type of graduate degree you are receiving. That second option is what lets someone still finishing a program use it.
Where it sits against a physician program
Side by side, for a primary residence purchase:
The graduate program reaches 90% loan-to-value, to $1,500,000, at a 720 score, with debt-to-income to 50%, and it accepts a much wider set of professions.
The physician programs reach higher. MedPro Premier (revised 09/11/2026) runs to 100% to $1,500,000 at 680, or to $2,000,000 at 720, and MedPro Advantage (revised 07/16/2025) runs to 95% on an ARM structure with a 43% debt-to-income ceiling and six months of reserves. Both are restricted to the specific medical designations.
So the trade is leverage for eligibility. A physician gets a higher loan-to-value ceiling. A graduate-degree professional gets access to a no-mortgage-insurance structure at all, which conventional financing above 80% will not give you.
Note the debt-to-income difference in particular. The graduate program's 50% ceiling is materially more generous than the MedPro Advantage 43%, and for a professional carrying graduate school debt, that ceiling can matter more than the extra leverage would have.
The part worth pausing on: non-warrantable condos
The guidelines state that non-warrantable condos may be considered, with combined loan-to-value capped at 80%.
That is genuinely useful in Scottsdale. A number of well-built, desirable Scottsdale condo projects fail agency warrantability for reasons that have nothing to do with the individual unit: commercial space above the allowed share, investor concentration, pending litigation, or a single entity owning too many units. Conventional financing declines those projects. A program that contemplates them opens buildings that were otherwise closed to you.
If you are looking at a project and your lender has gone quiet after ordering the condo questionnaire, that is usually what happened, and it is worth asking directly rather than waiting.
Run it against conventional before you commit
No mortgage insurance is a real benefit and it is not automatically the cheaper answer. These are niche programs and they price accordingly.
If you have 20% to put down and clean documentable income, conventional financing frequently costs less over the years you actually hold the loan. If you have 10% and strong forward income, avoiding mortgage insurance while preserving cash is often decisive.
The only way to know is to price both on your file, over your realistic hold period rather than over thirty years. Any lender who will not show you that comparison is showing you the product they would rather sell.
Why bring this file to us
- We know which list your degree is on. Physician programs and graduate programs have different eligibility, and being told no on one does not mean no.
- We compare it against conventional honestly. No mortgage insurance is valuable, but it is not automatically cheaper. You should see both side by side.
- We handle the non-warrantable condo case, which this program contemplates and most agency financing simply declines.
- Broker model. Multiple investors rather than one bank's shelf, which is what a file like this needs when the first answer is no.
- You talk to the principal. Ricky Khamis is President of EPiQ Lending, NMLS #173141, lending in Arizona since 1999. Direct line: (480) 999-9842.
EPiQ Lending is NMLS #1936984, at 7975 N. Hayden Road, Suite A-101 in Scottsdale. Verify all of it before you trust any of it: Ricky's EPiQ Lending profile, the Scottsdale branch, and the license itself at NMLS Consumer Access. Hold every lender to that standard, including us.
Send me your degree documentation and your contract, and I will tell you whether the graduate program beats conventional financing on your numbers.
Program figures in this post are from the CMG Financial (NMLS #1820) guideline set named above, as published on the revision date given. They describe one investor's program at one point in time. Other investors price and underwrite the same borrower differently, guidelines change without notice, and nothing here is an offer of any specific program or terms. Confirm current eligibility on your own file before you plan around any of it.
Equal Housing Opportunity. This is general information, not a commitment to lend or an offer to extend credit. Rates, terms, and program guidelines change and depend on credit approval, property appraisal, income and asset verification, and other qualifying factors. Not all applicants will qualify. Non-QM, asset-based and business purpose financing carry different pricing, terms and consumer protections than agency financing. Consult your tax advisor regarding the tax treatment of any income or distribution strategy.
Find out what you qualify for before you start looking
Tell me where you are in training or practice and I will tell you which structure fits your file, what it needs, and what it does not. No credit pull to have the conversation.
