The down payment gets you to the starting line. Qualifying comes down to whether your income carries both mortgage payments at once. A second home you'll use yourself stacks its full payment on top of your existing primary mortgage, and the combined total has to fit inside your debt-to-income ratio, the same as any other large recurring obligation. A personal second home also brings no rental income to offset the cost. Because you're occupying it rather than renting it, nothing comes in to help the payment pencil, so the entire second payment counts against you. An investment property works differently, since projected rent can absorb part of the cost. The 40% equity in your primary residence is real wealth, but equity alone doesn't qualify you; the lender is testing cash flow. You could tap that equity for the down payment or reserves, though borrowing against it adds another payment to the same DTI calculation. The cleanest way to see whether both payments fit is to run your actual income against both mortgages together, which is exactly what we do in a free Roadmap conversation, about 20 minutes with your real numbers.