Agritopia is the Johnston family's former farmland in Gilbert, redeveloped as a neighborhood built around a working urban farm rather than a golf course. Orchards and row crops inside the community, a commercial node with Joe's Farm Grill and the Coffee Shop, front porches, alleys, and a walkable layout that almost nothing else in the East Valley matches.
It attracts entrepreneurs and small business owners for the reason you would guess: the people who choose a neighborhood built on an idea tend to be people running something of their own. Which makes the financing conversation predictable, and it has two halves.
Half one: how an underwriter rebuilds your income
Two years of filed returns, analyzed on Fannie Mae Form 1084 or Freddie Mac Form 91. Not revenue, not your profit and loss.
- Schedule C: net profit from line 31, plus depreciation, depletion and business use of home added back, minus non-recurring income, divided by 24.
- 1120S and K-1: your W-2 wage from the entity counts. K-1 ordinary income counts only where distributions are documented and the business has liquidity to keep paying them.
- 1065 and K-1: same, with guaranteed payments included.
- Schedule E: rental net with depreciation, taxes, insurance, interest and dues added back where allowed, minus full PITIA.
The arithmetic nobody enjoys: every dollar of aggressive deduction saves tax at your marginal rate and costs roughly four to five dollars of buying power. A year two lower than year one generally becomes your qualifying income rather than the average. See Business Owner Write-Offs and Your Mortgage.
If you have been self-employed under two years, that is a specific problem with specific answers rather than a dead end. See Recently Self-Employed.
Half two: what Agritopia adds on the property side
Housing types vary and so does the loan. Single family homes, attached product, and condominium units including the Generation Ag development. A condominium purchase means the loan depends on the project qualifying as well as you: owner occupancy ratios, budget and reserve adequacy, insurance coverage, litigation, and single-owner concentration. A fully qualified buyer gets declined over a project they do not control. Establish the project's status before you write. See Condo and Project Approval.
Community obligations are layered, and they count. Between the association and the community's farm and amenity structure, the monthly obligation attached to an address here is not a single line. Every recurring obligation goes into your debt-to-income calculation, and on a self-employed file where the qualifying income was already rebuilt downward, that number matters more than usual. Get the complete figure for the specific address in writing, not an estimate. See HOA and Club Dues in Your Ratio.
Appraisals here need a thoughtful appraiser. Agritopia is not comparable to the Gilbert subdivision across the arterial, and the premium buyers pay for it is real but has to be supported by sales inside the community. A low volume of recent closings in a specific housing type stretches the comparable set. Order early.
If you work from home, say so, but know what it does and does not mean. Business use of home is an add-back on the income analysis. It is not a commercial use question on a residential loan unless you are doing something the property is not zoned for.
When the returns do not support the purchase
Take conventional financing if your returns support it. Cheapest money available, and in Gilbert's price range most self-employed buyers who document properly can get there. When the returns genuinely do not support it, these are the alternatives, and none of them is a shortcut around qualifying.
Bank statement. Twelve or twenty four months of deposits with an expense factor applied by business type. Transfers between your own accounts are stripped out. See How Bank Statement Income Is Calculated and 12 vs 24 Month Bank Statements.
Profit and loss or written verification of employment programs. A CPA-prepared profit and loss, sometimes with supporting statements. See P&L and WVOE Loans.
Asset depletion, where the business has made you asset-rich and income-light on paper.
No-ratio, where no debt-to-income test is applied at all and credit, assets, reserves and the property carry the file.
Note one interaction: a non-QM loan on a condominium unit is two sets of eligibility requirements at once. Raise both on the first call so nobody finds the overlap late.
Before you write in Agritopia
- Confirm the exact housing type and whether the loan requires project review.
- Get the complete monthly community obligation for the specific address in writing.
- Have your lender run both the agency analysis and a bank statement analysis so you can see which produces the better approval before you shop.
- Get your CPA and your lender in one conversation before the qualifying returns are filed.
- Count reserves the way a lender will: after closing, excluding business funds you cannot document access to.
- Get fully underwritten, not pre-qualified. A pre-qualification is a calculator. An underwritten pre-approval means a human read your returns.
Why bring this file to us
- We read the documents ourselves, rather than handing them to a processor and waiting.
- Broker model. An unusual file needs multiple investors, not one bank's shelf.
- The full toolkit, agency and jumbo through bank statement, asset depletion, DSCR and no-ratio non-QM.
- You talk to the principal. Ricky Khamis is President of EPiQ Lending, NMLS #173141, lending in Arizona since 1999 and a 2025 Presidents Club Winner at CMG Home Loans. 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 the file before you write an offer, and I will tell you what it actually supports.
Equal Housing Opportunity. This is general information, not a commitment to lend or an offer to extend credit. Program guidelines, eligibility requirements and documentation standards vary by investor and change over time. Rates, terms and program guidelines change and depend on credit approval, property appraisal and other qualifying factors. Not all applicants will qualify. Non-QM financing carries different pricing and terms than agency financing. Consult your tax advisor regarding your own situation.
Looking at a specific home? Send me the address and I will run the numbers: rickykhamis.com/analyze
