Tarrant County

Arlington Mortgage Broker: Home Loans in Tarrant County

Redfin put Arlington's median sale price at roughly $328,000 for the three months ending September 2026, up 0.4% from the same period a year earlier, with homes selling after a median of 48 days against 43 days the year before. The purchase price is the straightforward part of an Arlington file. The complicated part is income, because a large share of what trades here is bought for what it earns: rentals in a stadium district that hosted nine 2026 World Cup matches, housing around a university that enrolled 42,710 students in fall 2025, and duplexes and fourplexes scattered through the central city.

That changes which questions matter. This page covers what the city's short-term rental ordinance actually permits and where, how underwriters treat nightly rental income compared to a signed twelve-month lease, how debt service coverage qualifying works when there are no tax returns in the file, how lenders handle by-the-bedroom student leases, what owner-occupant terms do on a two-to-four unit property, how commuting works in a city with no fixed-route bus system, and how to finance the 1960s and 1970s housing stock in central Arlington on its after-completion value. County-wide mechanics live in the Tarrant County lending guide.

What do Arlington's housing numbers say?

They say a flat market with a wide spread between data providers, and the spread itself is the useful information.

Redfin, measuring closed sales over the three months ending September 2026, had the city median near $328,000, a 0.4% year-over-year increase, 48 median days on market, and a competitiveness score of 59 out of 100. Orchard, measuring a trailing 30-day window around the same time, reported a median of $315,000, down 5.1% year over year, with 33 median days on market and 956 homes listed for sale citywide. Resideline, looking at six months of closings through October 2026, reported a $335,000 median across 1,619 closed sales, with listings going under contract in a median of 25 days and taking another 21 days from contract to close. Movoto, using July 2026 data, reported a $372,945 median sold price and 55 days on market against 44 a year earlier.

Those four numbers describe one market measured four ways. The gaps come from the window, from whether the source is reporting list prices or sold prices, and from the mix of what closed. The practical lesson for a buyer is to stop treating a citywide median as a benchmark for a specific house. Arlington's stock runs from 1950s slab-on-grade ranch homes to new master-planned construction, and a median that averages those tells you almost nothing about any individual address.

The metro context is more stable. The Texas Real Estate Research Center at Texas A&M, in the Texas Housing Insight it published September 18, 2026 covering July data, had the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington metro at a 4.6-month supply, with closed sales down 1.5%, active inventory down 4.3%, and prices off 0.2% year over year. The same report noted the Fort Worth-Arlington division had posted a fourth consecutive month of year-over-year price gains. Statewide, the July median was $339,000, unchanged from a year earlier, homes that sold averaged 63 days on market against 61 a year before, and inventory stood at a 5.5-month supply. The center also recorded median seller price cuts holding at $13,000, about 3.6% of the initial list price, which is the clearest single sign of where negotiating power sits.

Federal Reserve data republished by Trading Economics put median days on market across the metro at 54 in July 2026, after a record high of 72 in January 2026. Days on market that long give a buyer room to ask for repairs, a rate buydown, or help with closing costs, and in Arlington's older sections that room to ask is usually better spent on the roof and the systems than on the price.

Can you legally run a short-term rental in Arlington?

Only in specific places, and only with a permit. Arlington regulates this more tightly than most Texas cities, and the ordinance geography decides whether a property can be underwritten on nightly rental income at all.

The City Council adopted two ordinances on April 23, 2019, effective August 1, 2019. Ordinance 19-014 sets where short-term rentals may operate. Ordinance 19-022 sets the operating rules and the permit requirements. Neither grandfathered rentals that were already running, so an existing operation does not confer any rights.

The core of it is the STR Zone, a designated area extending roughly one mile around the Entertainment District. The city describes its boundaries as East Lamar Boulevard on the north, Center Street on the west, East Abram Street on the south, and the southbound State Highway 360 frontage road on the east. Inside that zone, residential structures in all zoning districts are eligible, including RM-12 medium density residential and RMF-22 multifamily. Outside the zone, eligibility narrows sharply: existing residential structures in non-residential and mixed-use districts qualify, and planned development districts qualify when the PD permits at least 12 units per acre or is a PD for RM-12 or RMF-22, unless that PD prohibits the use outright. Apartments are allowed with the landlord's consent and subject to a cap on how many units in a complex may be used this way.

The permit is specific to one owner at one location, cannot be transferred or assigned, and carries an annual renewal. Applications go through the city's online permit system and a city inspection follows the application. Maximum occupancy is two people per bedroom plus two, capped at twelve regardless of bedroom count. Operators also collect and remit state and city hotel occupancy tax.

Why a mortgage broker cares: if the address is not eligible, the income does not exist for underwriting purposes. No lender will qualify a property on revenue from a use the city does not permit, and a lender that discovered the use was prohibited after closing would treat it as a material misrepresentation. Before you make an offer on a property you intend to rent nightly, confirm three things with the city in writing. That the address falls inside the STR Zone or in an otherwise eligible district. That no PD or deed restriction prohibits it. And that a permit is actually obtainable for that address rather than theoretically available for that zoning category. Verify the current fee, zone boundaries and renewal rules directly with Arlington's planning and development services, because ordinances get amended and third-party summaries go stale.

How do lenders treat short-term rental income compared to a lease?

A signed twelve-month lease is a contract. Nightly rental revenue is a forecast. Underwriting handles those two things very differently, and the difference is worth understanding before you count on the income.

With a long-term lease, the documentation is clean. An appraiser completes a comparable rent schedule, you provide the executed lease, and the lender applies a vacancy and maintenance factor to arrive at usable rental income. Agency guidelines generally count 75% of gross rent, and when the property already appears on your tax returns, the Schedule E history governs instead. Everything in that chain is verifiable by a third party.

Short-term rental revenue has none of that structure. There is no lease, the rate changes nightly, occupancy is seasonal, and in Arlington it is event-driven in a way that makes an annual average misleading. The Cowboys play a limited home schedule. The Rangers play a long one. Six Flags Over Texas and Hurricane Harbor have seasons. Concerts and tournaments cluster. AT&T Stadium's nine World Cup matches in June and July 2026 produced a demand spike that will not recur on any schedule you can borrow against. An underwriter looking at a month with an extraordinary average nightly rate does not extrapolate from it. They discount it.

What makes the income usable:

A documented operating history on the subject property. Most lenders that accept short-term rental income want twelve consecutive months of platform statements or property management reports for that specific address, in the owner's name, with gross revenue and occupancy broken out by month. Twenty-four months is better and sometimes required.

Bank statements that corroborate the platform reports. Deposits landing in an account you control, matching the statements, remove the argument.

Expense documentation. Cleaning, supplies, platform fees, utilities, and management are real and they come out before the income counts.

A conservative treatment of the result. Many lenders use the lower of the trailing twelve-month average and the appraiser's long-term market rent for the property. That is the single most important thing to understand: a program may size your loan on what the house would earn on an ordinary annual lease even when your actual nightly revenue is higher.

Projections do not work. Third-party revenue estimates for a property you have not operated are not accepted as qualifying income by any lender we place. A property with no history gets underwritten on long-term market rent, and you have to make the file work on that basis.

How does DSCR qualifying work on an Arlington rental?

A debt service coverage ratio loan qualifies the property rather than you. The lender compares the property's rent against the full housing payment, including taxes, insurance, and any association dues, and the resulting ratio drives the decision. No tax returns, no employment verification, no debt-to-income calculation on your personal income.

That matters in Arlington specifically because so many investors here are self-employed, hold several properties already, or write off enough depreciation that their tax returns understate what they actually earn. Those are exactly the files that stall under full documentation underwriting and close cleanly under DSCR financing.

How the pieces fit together:

The rent figure comes from the appraisal, through the comparable rent schedule the appraiser completes alongside the value opinion, and from the lease if one exists. Lenders typically use the lower of the two when the lease is below market, and the market rent when the property is vacant.

The payment figure includes principal, interest, taxes, insurance, and dues. In Tarrant County the tax component is heavy. Commissioners adopted a county rate of 18.6 cents per $100 of value for 2026, down from 18.62 cents, with the hospital district at 16.5 cents and Tarrant County College at 12 cents after trustees raised it from 11.228 cents in September 2026. Add the City of Arlington and the school district and the combined bill is a large share of the payment. An investor property gets no homestead exemption and no appraisal cap, which means the full assessed value is taxed and it can rise without the 10% ceiling a homestead enjoys. Underwrite the tax line on the post-sale assessed value, not the seller's exempted bill. Run a property through the DSCR math before you write the offer.

Ratios above 1.00 mean the rent covers the payment. Programs differ on the minimum they will accept, some will go below 1.00 with compensating factors, and the ratio affects pricing. Vesting in an LLC is normal and usually preferred, and the loans are business purpose, secured by non-owner-occupied property, which puts them outside consumer mortgage disclosure rules. Prepayment structures are common and negotiable, reserves are required, and cash-out seasoning rules vary by program.

One Arlington-specific note. If you intend to operate short term, tell the lender up front. Some DSCR programs accept short-term rental income with the documentation described above. Others qualify every file on long-term market rent regardless of use. A few will not lend on a property whose permitted use is nightly rental. Finding out which after the appraisal is ordered wastes two weeks and an appraisal fee.

What about student rentals near UTA?

The University of Texas at Arlington enrolled 42,710 students in fall 2025, a 2.6% annual increase, including 30,706 undergraduates, 1,692 postbaccalaureate students, and 10,312 graduate students, according to the university's own figures. That fall it enrolled more than 5,100 first-time college students, a 7.6% increase over fall 2024, when total enrollment was 41,613. The university sits immediately south of downtown Arlington, and the housing around it supports a rental market of real size.

Two features of that market shape how a lender sees it.

The first is that UTA carries a large commuter population. A campus where a substantial share of students drive in from across the county does not empty out the way a residential campus does, which is favorable for vacancy and worth saying out loud in a file, though it is not something an underwriter will credit without documentation.

The second is by-the-bedroom leasing, which is how a lot of near-campus property is actually operated and which does not fit standard underwriting at all. Here is the problem. Agency and most DSCR guidelines are built around one lease per unit. A house rented as four separate bedroom agreements, each with its own tenant, its own term, and often a parent as guarantor, produces four documents where the system expects one. Lenders handle it in a few different ways:

Some will accept the aggregate of the room leases, with a haircut, when every agreement is executed, the terms overlap, and a rent roll ties them together.

Some will disregard the room leases entirely and qualify on the appraiser's single-lease market rent for the property, which is almost always lower than the aggregate of per-bedroom rents. That is the conservative default and the one to plan around.

Some will not accept room-by-room leasing at all, treating it as a rooming house rather than a single-family rental.

If you are buying to operate this way, get the lender's written position before the appraisal, build your purchase math on single-lease market rent, and treat the premium from per-bedroom leasing as upside rather than as qualifying income.

Three more things that come up repeatedly on near-campus files. Turnover concentrates in August, so a purchase closing in late summer may arrive with the property leased for the year at whatever the prior owner negotiated, or arrive vacant at the worst possible moment. Converted space is common, meaning a garage conversion or a partitioned living room sold as an extra bedroom, and an appraiser will not count a room without proper egress, ceiling height, and permitted construction, which can drop a four-bedroom marketing claim to a three-bedroom appraisal and change your rent assumptions. And Arlington applies occupancy limits in single-family zoning along with rental registration and inspection requirements on certain properties, so confirm what applies to the specific address with the city before you buy.

How do two-to-four unit properties work with owner-occupant terms?

Buying a duplex, triplex, or fourplex and living in one unit is the one structure that gets you owner-occupied financing terms on an income property, and it is underused in Arlington given how much two-to-four unit stock sits in the central and eastern parts of the city.

The mechanics are specific by program.

On conventional financing, a one-unit-occupied two-to-four unit property qualifies with owner-occupant terms, and the conforming limit rises with unit count, starting from $832,750 for a one-unit property in 2026. The appraisal is a small residential income property report rather than the standard single-family form, and it comes with an operating income statement. Rental income from the units you do not occupy can help you qualify, typically at 75% of the appraiser's market rent, and reserve requirements increase on three and four unit properties.

FHA financing permits two-to-four units with owner occupancy and is often the more accessible route on credit grounds, with the 2026 national floor at $541,287 and higher limits by unit count. The constraint to know about is the self-sufficiency test on three and four unit properties: the net rental income from the property has to cover the mortgage payment, calculated using the appraiser's market rent less a vacancy factor. A fourplex where the rents do not clear that bar is not an FHA deal regardless of your credit or income.

VA financing also allows two-to-four units for eligible borrowers with owner occupancy, and carries no monthly mortgage insurance.

The common thread is that you have to actually occupy a unit, in good faith, and the occupancy certification you sign is enforceable. Once you move out, a refinance on that property is investment financing, which is where DSCR usually takes over.

Where the stock is: scattered two-to-four unit buildings run through central Arlington near downtown and the university, along the older corridors east of Cooper Street, and in pockets of east Arlington toward the Grand Prairie line. Much of it was built between the late 1960s and the early 1980s, which brings the condition questions below into the same conversation.

What does having no bus system do to buying here?

Arlington is the largest city in the United States with no traditional fixed-route public transit bus system. That is not a quirk of trivia. It is a standing input into where people buy and what their monthly obligations look like.

The history is short. A fixed-route pilot, the Metro Arlington Xpress, ran from 2013 to 2017 and was discontinued after ridership averaged roughly 275 to 300 trips a day. Voters have turned down transit proposals more than once. Instead of rebuilding a bus network, the city went to an on-demand model.

Arlington On-Demand, launched in December 2017 in partnership with Via, is a city-subsidized shared ride service booked through an app, using vans rather than buses, with no fixed routes or timetables. It now covers the entire city plus the CentrePort Trinity Railway Express station and the Eastchase Parkway area in Fort Worth, where it connects to Trinity Metro bus stops. The City Council approved a fare restructuring on January 6, 2026 that took effect March 2, 2026, replacing the former flat $3 and $5 fares with distance-based pricing from $3 to $8, quoted before you book. Trips to and from the CentrePort TRE station stayed at a $3 flat fare. Ride credit bundles replaced weekly and monthly passes, with the city's May 2026 announcement describing a $25 purchase that loads $30 of ride credit. The service is heavily subsidized, with fares historically covering a minority of operating cost.

Three consequences for a mortgage file:

Plan on a vehicle per working adult. In a city with no fixed-route network, car payments and auto insurance are effectively part of housing cost, and car payments sit in your debt-to-income ratio where they directly reduce the loan amount you qualify for. Paying off a vehicle before application can move the approval more than almost anything else you could do with the same money.

The CentrePort connection is the rail link. Arlington has no rail station of its own. The TRE runs between the two downtowns through CentrePort, just north of the city, and the on-demand service reaching that station at a flat fare is the practical rail option for an Arlington address. If a train commute matters to you, buy with that connection in mind and test it before you commit.

Verify current coverage and hours yourself. Service areas, fares, and operating hours have changed repeatedly since 2017 and will change again. This affects daily life rather than your loan approval, but it affects daily life a great deal.

What does buying between two downtowns do to your loan file?

Arlington sits between the two city centers with roughly 20 miles to each, reached on Interstate 30, with State Highway 360 and Loop 820 handling the north-south movement and Dallas Fort Worth International Airport about 20 minutes north. For a household with one person working east and one working west, there is no other address in the county that splits the difference this evenly.

The buying decision usually comes down to a trade most people make intuitively and then regret arithmetically. You can live near one job and commute long in one direction, or live between and commute moderately in both. Arlington is the second answer, and the reason it keeps winning is that the housing cost is lower than either downtown's close-in alternatives while the commute is tolerable in both directions.

The loan file side of that is where we spend our time:

A new job on one side of the metro, with a start date after closing, is financeable. An offer letter with a defined salary, a start date, and no contingencies, plus documentation that the position is non-contingent, is acceptable to most programs when the start date falls within a defined window after closing. Variable compensation on a new job is harder, because there is no history to average.

If you are keeping a departing residence, the handling decides whether you qualify for two houses or one. Converting the old house to a rental lets you offset its payment with documented rental income, which usually requires an executed lease, proof of a security deposit, and in some cases evidence of equity in the departing property. Without those, the full payment counts against you.

If you are selling, the timing of the sale drives everything. A closed sale is clean. A pending sale is manageable with the right documentation. A listing with no contract means qualifying with both payments.

Buyers moving from a lower-tax state consistently underestimate the Texas property tax line. There is no state income tax here and the property tax carries the load instead. Build your target payment around the actual parcel's tax bill at the post-sale assessed value, not the seller's exempted figure, before you fall in love with a price point. Compare the programs against that number rather than against a monthly figure someone quoted on a listing.

If you are weighing the west side instead, the Fort Worth market has its own guide, and the two cities behave differently enough that the comparison is worth making deliberately.

How do you finance a 1960s or 1970s house in central Arlington?

By underwriting the systems rather than the finishes, and by using a renovation mortgage that lends against the value the house will have when the work is done.

Central Arlington's housing stock is largely post-war, with heavy construction through the 1960s and 1970s. A house of that era can show beautifully and still carry four or five deferred capital items at once. These are the ones that decide a file:

Sewer and supply lines. Cast iron drain lines reach end of life, and galvanized steel supply lines corrode from the inside and reduce flow before they leak. Neither is visible in a walkthrough. A sewer scope during the option period costs very little against what a line replacement costs.

Electrical. Aluminum branch circuit wiring was used in single-family construction from roughly the mid-1960s into the early 1970s, and insurers and inspectors treat it as a defect requiring remediation at connections. Original panels of that period include brands with known failure histories. Service capacity is often inadequate for current loads.

Mechanical. Original ductwork in slab-era homes was sometimes run under the slab, and a collapsed or failed under-slab duct is an expensive problem with no cheap fix.

Foundation. Slab-on-grade on North Texas clay moves with moisture. Some movement is normal, differential movement is not, and the distinction needs an engineer rather than a contractor's opinion.

Roof. Roof age drives both the appraisal and the insurance. North Texas hail means carriers look closely at age and condition, some apply percentage-based wind and hail deductibles, and settlement on an older roof may be on an actual cash value basis with depreciation deducted rather than full replacement cost. Get a real insurance quote during the option period and ask specifically about the deductible structure and the settlement basis.

Government programs apply minimum property requirements, and an appraiser working an FHA or VA assignment will call out peeling paint, missing handrails, a non-functioning system, or an active leak as a required repair before closing. On a pre-1978 house, lead-based paint handling applies.

Renovation financing is the structure that solves this. FHA 203(k) and Fannie Mae HomeStyle both finance the purchase and the repairs in a single loan, underwritten against the after-completion value rather than the as-is value. The practical sequence:

Get a contractor's itemized bid before the appraisal. The appraiser values the house as completed, using your plans and bid as the specification. A vague scope produces an unreliable value.

Expect a consultant on larger scopes. The Standard 203(k) uses a HUD consultant to prepare a work write-up and inspect draws. The Limited version handles smaller, non-structural scopes with less administration.

Funds disburse in draws against inspections, not in a lump at closing, and a contingency reserve is built in because change orders happen on houses this age.

Permits are part of the file. Electrical, mechanical, plumbing, and structural work needs City of Arlington permits, and unpermitted work discovered later is both a resale problem and an insurance problem.

One point about appraisal mechanics on this stock. In a neighborhood where most sales are unrenovated, an appraiser may struggle to support the after-completion value because the comparables have not been updated. Keeping the scope aligned with what the neighborhood actually supports is the difference between a renovation loan that closes and one that comes in short.

Where do people buy in Arlington?

The city covers roughly 99 square miles, four school districts serve parts of it, and two separate municipalities sit entirely surrounded by it. Verify the city, the school district, and the taxing units by street address, because none of those boundaries follow intuition here.

The Entertainment District occupies the north-central part of the city around AT&T Stadium, Globe Life Field, Choctaw Stadium, and Six Flags Over Texas. It is predominantly commercial, hotel, and parking, with the short-term rental zone centered on it, and nearby residential streets carry event-day traffic and parking pressure. Arlington ISD.

Downtown Arlington and the UTA campus area sit immediately south, with the oldest platted streets in the city, a mix of early and mid-century housing on small lots, student-oriented rental stock, and recent mixed-use infill along Abram and Division. Arlington ISD.

Viridian is the large master-planned community on the northeast side along the Trinity River, with new construction, lakes and trails as part of the plan, and a Municipal Utility District that levies its own rate on top of the regular taxing units. Confirm the MUD rate on the specific lot, because it is escrowed with your taxes and counted in your qualifying payment. Hurst-Euless-Bedford ISD serves part of this area.

Interlochen, west of downtown along the Trinity bottoms, is a 1960s and 1970s neighborhood of larger lots, canals, and mature trees, known regionally for a holiday lights display that draws traffic through it every December. Arlington ISD.

Dalworthington Gardens is a separately incorporated city of roughly two square miles entirely surrounded by Arlington, with large lots, a minimum lot size written into its zoning, its own police department, and its own tax rate. Addresses here are not City of Arlington addresses even though they appear to be. Arlington ISD and Kennedale ISD both serve parts of the area.

Pantego is the other separately incorporated town inside Arlington's boundaries, smaller still, with mid-century housing and its own city tax rate. Arlington ISD.

East Arlington toward the Grand Prairie line holds a large share of the 1960s through 1980s stock, along with much of the two-to-four unit inventory, on a grid of older corridors. Arlington ISD, with Grand Prairie ISD serving some adjacent addresses.

South Arlington toward Mansfield is where the newer suburban construction runs, mostly 1990s onward, with association communities, larger floor plans, and straightforward conventional financing. Mansfield ISD serves a substantial part of south Arlington, and the rate difference between Mansfield ISD and Arlington ISD is large enough to change the payment on two otherwise identical houses.

What is there to do in Arlington?

More per square mile than almost anywhere in Texas, and it is concentrated.

AT&T Stadium, home of the Dallas Cowboys, seats over 80,000 and expands past 100,000, and the interior volume is genuinely hard to describe until you stand in it. It hosted nine matches of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, more than any other venue in the tournament, including five group stage matches in June, two round of 32 matches, a round of 16 match, and a semifinal on July 14. FIFA required it to be called Dallas Stadium during the tournament because corporate sponsor names are barred at competition venues.

Globe Life Field next door is the retractable-roof home of the Texas Rangers, who won the 2023 World Series, the franchise's first championship. Choctaw Stadium, the open-air ballpark the Rangers played in before 2020, still stands across the plaza and hosts other sports and events.

Six Flags Over Texas opened in 1961 as the original park in the Six Flags chain, named for the six nations whose flags have flown over Texas, and it is the reason a generation of Texans knows Arlington at all. Hurricane Harbor, the water park across the highway, operates seasonally alongside it.

River Legacy Parks runs along the Trinity River on the north side, with several hundred acres of bottomland hardwood forest, paved and natural trails, and a science center. It is an unexpectedly wild stretch of river given the development around it.

The Arlington Museum of Art anchors the arts presence, and Levitt Pavilion in downtown runs a free outdoor concert series across the spring and fall seasons, which has done more for downtown foot traffic than anything else in the last decade. Lake Arlington on the west side handles fishing and boating.

UTA's Maverick athletics compete in Division I, and campus events keep the area around Cooper Street active through the academic year. Dallas Fort Worth International Airport sits about 20 minutes north, which matters if you travel for work.

Which loan programs fit Arlington purchases?

Conventional financing covers most owner-occupied purchases here, with the 2026 conforming limit at $832,750 for a one-unit property and higher limits by unit count on two-to-four unit buildings. It is also the program where mortgage insurance ends once equity supports it.

FHA financing carries a large share of Arlington's mid-market volume, with the 2026 national floor at $541,287 and HUD publishing the county figure. It is the stronger option when credit depth is the constraint, and it permits two-to-four units with owner occupancy subject to the self-sufficiency test on three and four unit properties.

VA financing suits eligible service members and veterans, carries no monthly mortgage insurance, waives the funding fee for veterans receiving compensation for a service-connected disability, and pairs with the Texas disabled veteran property tax exemption, which scales with rating and reaches a full homestead exemption at 100%.

DSCR financing is the workhorse for Arlington rentals, qualifying on the property's rent against its payment rather than on your tax returns, vested in an entity, business purpose, non-owner-occupied.

Bank statement programs fit self-employed buyers, including people whose income comes from operating rentals, by documenting deposits over a defined period instead of tax returns.

Renovation financing, FHA 203(k) or Fannie Mae HomeStyle, is the right tool on the 1960s and 1970s stock in central and east Arlington, lending against the after-completion value.

Start a purchase file here if you already know the structure you need, or tell us the address and the plan for the property and we will tell you which programs will actually underwrite it.

Frequently asked questions

Can I run an Airbnb in Arlington, TX? Only in eligible locations with a city permit. Arlington's 2019 ordinances limit short-term rentals to a designated STR Zone extending about one mile around the Entertainment District, plus existing residential structures in certain non-residential, mixed-use, and higher-density planned development districts. Permits are per owner, per address, non-transferable, and renewed annually. Confirm eligibility with the city before you make an offer.

Will a lender count my short-term rental income? Sometimes, with documentation. Expect to provide twelve or more consecutive months of platform or management statements for that specific property in your name, bank statements corroborating the deposits, and expense records. Many lenders then use the lower of the trailing average and the appraiser's long-term market rent. Revenue projections on a property you have not operated are not accepted.

What is a DSCR loan and who uses one in Arlington? A debt service coverage ratio loan qualifies the property rather than the borrower, comparing its rent against the full housing payment including taxes, insurance, and dues. There is no tax return review and no personal debt-to-income calculation. Self-employed investors, people who already hold several properties, and anyone whose returns understate their income use it most.

Can I buy a rental house near UTA and lease it by the bedroom? You can operate that way, but plan your purchase math on single-lease market rent. Some lenders accept aggregated room leases with a reduction when all agreements are executed and tied to a rent roll. Others ignore them and qualify on the appraiser's market rent for the whole property. A few decline room-by-room leasing entirely, so get the position in writing first.

Does Arlington have a bus system? No. It is the largest city in the United States with no traditional fixed-route public transit bus system. A fixed-route pilot ran from 2013 to 2017 and was discontinued after low ridership. The city runs Arlington On-Demand instead, a subsidized app-booked shared ride van service launched in December 2017 that covers the whole city.

How much does Arlington On-Demand cost? Fares moved to distance-based pricing from $3 to $8 on March 2, 2026, after the City Council approved the change on January 6, 2026, replacing the earlier flat $3 and $5 fares. Trips to and from the CentrePort Trinity Railway Express station remained at a $3 flat fare. Ride credit bundles replaced the former weekly and monthly passes. Verify current fares with the city.

Can I take a train from Arlington to Dallas? Not from inside the city. Arlington has no rail station. The Trinity Railway Express runs through CentrePort just north of Arlington, and the city's on-demand service reaches that station at a flat fare, which is the practical rail connection for an Arlington address. Test the trip before you buy if a train commute matters to you.

How far is Arlington from downtown Dallas and downtown Fort Worth? Roughly 20 miles to each, with Interstate 30 running between them through the city, and Dallas Fort Worth International Airport about 20 minutes north. That even split is why households with two people working in opposite directions so often end up buying here.

Which school district serves Arlington? Four do. Arlington ISD covers most of the city, Mansfield ISD serves a substantial part of south Arlington, Hurst-Euless-Bedford ISD reaches parts of the northeast, and Kennedale ISD serves some southwestern addresses. The boundaries do not follow city limits, and the rate difference is large enough to change the payment, so verify by street address.

Are Pantego and Dalworthington Gardens part of Arlington? No. Both are separately incorporated municipalities entirely surrounded by Arlington, each with its own city government and its own tax rate. An address there is not a City of Arlington address even though it appears to be one, which changes the taxing units on the bill and sometimes the permitting authority for renovation work.

What is Viridian and does the MUD matter? Viridian is the large master-planned community on Arlington's northeast side along the Trinity River, with newer construction and planned lakes and trails. It sits inside a Municipal Utility District that levies its own rate in addition to the city, county, school, college, and hospital district taxes. It is escrowed with your taxes and counted in your qualifying payment, so confirm the rate on the specific lot.

Should I worry about aluminum wiring in an older Arlington house? Take it seriously rather than worrying about it. Aluminum branch circuit wiring appeared in single-family construction from roughly the mid-1960s into the early 1970s, and insurers and inspectors treat it as a defect requiring remediation at the connections. Have an electrician evaluate it during the option period and price the remediation, because it affects insurability as well as safety.

Can I finance the repairs on a 1970s house along with the purchase? Yes, with a renovation mortgage. FHA 203(k) and Fannie Mae HomeStyle fund the purchase and the repairs in one loan underwritten against the after-completion value. Get an itemized contractor bid before the appraisal, expect a consultant and draw inspections on larger scopes, and keep the scope aligned with what comparable sales in the neighborhood support.

Can I buy a duplex or fourplex in Arlington and live in one unit? Yes, and that is the one way to get owner-occupied terms on an income property. Conventional, FHA, and VA all permit two-to-four units with owner occupancy, rental income from the other units can help you qualify, and conforming limits rise with unit count. FHA applies a self-sufficiency test on three and four unit properties that the rents have to clear.

Why is my insurance quote so high in Arlington? North Texas hail. Carriers price roof age and condition heavily, percentage-based wind and hail deductibles are common rather than flat dollar amounts, and settlement on an older roof may be on an actual cash value basis with depreciation deducted instead of full replacement cost. Get a real quote during the option period and ask about the deductible structure and the settlement basis specifically.

What is the median home price in Arlington, TX? It depends on the source and the window. Redfin had the city median near $328,000 for the three months ending September 2026, up 0.4% year over year. Orchard reported $315,000 on a trailing 30-day window, down 5.1%. Resideline reported $335,000 across six months of closings through October 2026. The market has been close to flat.

Tell us what the property is going to do

In Arlington the use decides the loan. The same three-bedroom house financed as a primary residence, a long-term rental, a nightly rental inside the STR Zone, or a renovation project with a bid attached runs through four different programs with four different documentation lists.

Send us the address and what you intend to do with it. We will confirm the school district and taxing units, check whether the address is eligible for the use you have in mind, and price the structures that will actually underwrite it.

Start your application · Run the numbers · Call 512-588-2771

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