Cash-Out Refinance on a Fully Booked Airbnb: The $500K Ceiling Nobody Mentions

Your short-term rental has been booked solid for a year, the appraiser’s rental income schedule backs up every dollar of that occupancy, and you want to pull cash out to fund the next deal. Here’s the number that catches most owners off guard: on a booked-up Airbnb, cash-out tops out at 75% loan-to-value for borrowers with 700+ credit — but how much cash you actually walk away with is set by a second ceiling that has nothing to do with how much equity you have. Stay at or under 65% LTV and you can pull up to $1,000,000. Push past 65% toward the 75% max and the cash-out itself is capped at $500,000, no matter what the equity math says.

Easy Lending USA offers business-purpose loans secured by non-owner-occupied investment property. Every figure below is indicative and subject to underwriting.

The appraisal decides whether you’re even in this program

None of this matters if the file doesn’t qualify for short-term-rental treatment in the first place. The appraiser’s own rental income schedule — not your Airbnb host dashboard, not an AirDNA projection — is what the lender uses to size the loan. If trailing bookings are thin or seasonal and the appraiser’s number comes in low, the file often prices as a long-term rental cash-out instead, under a different set of numbers entirely. We cover how that schedule gets built in AirDNA vs. the appraisal.

Two ceilings, not one

The loan-to-value limit tells you how big the new loan can be. A separate, flat dollar cap tells you how much of that can be cash in your pocket. They don’t move together, and the second one is the one that trips people up.

Reaching for more leverage produced less cash. At 65% LTV the borrower clears the $665,000 they wanted, under the $1,000,000 cap. At 70% LTV the $500,000 cap kicks in and caps the actual loan at $1,200,000 — a lower balance than the 65% scenario, not a higher one. Once you’re above the 65% line, more leverage buys you nothing.

The $1,000,000 cap has its own ceiling too. A $3,500,000 short-term rental with a $1,200,000 balance pencils to $1,075,000 of cash-out at 65% LTV — but the program caps it at $1,000,000, leaving the loan at $2,200,000 and the LTV at 62.9%, under the 65% line with room to spare.

What “short-term” costs you on the rate

A booked-up Airbnb cash-out refinance prices roughly a quarter to three-eighths of a point (0.25%–0.375%) over the same loan on a long-term rental, on top of indicative DSCR cash-out pricing that starts around 6.25%. Strong, consistent trailing occupancy and a clean appraisal schedule tend to land toward the lower end of that add-on; thin or seasonal booking history pushes toward the higher end. Treat both numbers as a starting point — your lending partner’s underwriting sets the final rate.

If the file doesn’t clear short-term-rental treatment and prices instead as a standard long-term rental cash-out refinance, neither of these two dollar caps applies. That program runs on credit-tiered LTV limits instead of a flat ceiling, which can land you a bigger or smaller number depending on the balance you’re carrying forward — a different set of trade-offs, not a worse one by default.

What the proceeds can fund

This is business-purpose financing on an investment property, not a way to access home equity for personal use. Proceeds that stay inside the investment business — a down payment on the next acquisition, a rehab reserve on another deal, paying off a higher-cost bridge loan — fit the program. At current fix-and-flip leverage, $500,000 covers roughly the down payment and rehab reserve on a $2,000,000–$2,500,000 acquisition, enough to anchor a full next deal without touching cash set aside for the existing portfolio. A plan built around personal spending or an owner-occupied purpose doesn’t fit here, and shouldn’t be structured as if it does.

When this is the wrong call

If you need more than $500,000 and your equity doesn’t clear the 65% LTV line on its own, pushing the loan into the 65%–75% band to “qualify” for a bigger number doesn’t work — the cap still applies regardless of how much equity sits behind it. A straight refinance without cash-out, a few more months of appreciation, or paying down the existing balance first usually nets more than forcing the higher tier. It’s also the wrong call if occupancy has been inconsistent in the trailing twelve months; a lender that can’t get a clean rental income schedule out of the file isn’t going to stretch to your dashboard numbers. See short-term rental rules by market for how local restrictions can affect that trailing history before you even get to the cap math.

Not sure which side of the 65% line your deal lands on? Check your short-term rental deal against current terms, or look at the full structure on the DSCR cash-out refinance program page before you decide how much leverage to actually take.