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Bank Statement Loans in North Dakota

Updated: September 7, 2026

North Dakota pairs a low cost of living with a resilient economy powered by energy, agriculture, healthcare, and a growing tech and aerospace sector, supporting a large base of independent business owners. For self-employed buyers who haven’t been able to qualify through conventional lending, Griffin Funding’s bank statement loans in North Dakota offer a straightforward alternative: qualify using 12 to 24 months of bank statements instead of tax returns, W-2s, or pay stubs.

  • Access home financing using bank statements
  • No tax returns or pay stubs required
  • Purchase, refinance, or cash-out options available
  • Enjoy high loan amounts and flexible terms
  • Competitive bank statement loan rates in North Dakota
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Table of Contents

Why Bank Statement Loans Matter in North Dakota’s Market

North Dakota home prices sit below the national average, giving the state a more accessible market than much of the country. For self-employed borrowers, though, that affordability can still be hard to reach, because conventional loans are built around W-2 employees and penalize business owners and contractors who write off expenses on their tax returns.

Here’s why bank statement loans make sense for self-employed borrowers in North Dakota:

  • North Dakota has a deep self-employed and small-business base. The state is home to more than 78,200 small businesses, which represent about 98.7% of all businesses in North Dakota. Self-employed workers and contractors make up a meaningful share of the workforce, especially across agriculture, energy, healthcare, construction, professional services, and the trades.
  • Write-offs make qualifying harder than it should be. The same deductions that keep a farmer, energy contractor, or small business owner healthy at tax time shrink the taxable income a conventional underwriter sees. IRS data shows that, nationally, sole proprietors report net income at roughly 20-23% of business receipts on average — well below the 50% of deposits Griffin Funding counts toward qualifying income by default. A profitable shop owner or tradesperson can look underqualified on paper even when the deposits hitting their account each month tell a different story. A bank statement loan looks at real deposits instead of an adjusted tax figure.
  • Affordable prices keep loan amounts accessible. With the average North Dakota home value around $298,846, well below the national figure, borrowers can stay competitive when bidding on homes without taking on outsized loan amounts. Lower purchase prices can mean more manageable monthly carrying costs for self-employed buyers.

Sources: Zillow home value data (July 2026), U.S. Small Business Administration Office of Advocacy, and IRS Statistics of Income (Nonfarm Sole Proprietorships, 2008-2015; SOI Bulletin, Spring 2025).

How North Dakota Bank Statement Loans Work

North Dakota business owners and contractors who write off expenses often show a taxable income far below what they actually earn. This tends to leave them underqualified on paper for conventional loans, even when their cash flow tells a different story.

Bank statement loans qualify you based on cash flow shown in bank statements, rather than traditional tax-return income.

Griffin Funding reviews 12 to 24 months of bank statements and calculates income from actual deposit history. The percentage of deposits that count toward your income depends on whether you use personal or business bank statements. Personal statements count 100% of deposits; business statements typically apply a 50% expense factor, which can go as low as 10% depending on your business type.

To qualify for a bank statement loan, you’ll need:

  • Credit score: 620 minimum
  • Self-employment history: 2 years minimum (or 1 year if you’ve stayed in the same industry)
  • Down payment: 10% with a 680+ credit score; 20% minimum with a 620-679 score
  • Bank statements: 12 or 24 months of personal or business statements showing consistent deposits
  • Property types: Single-family homes, multi-family homes, townhomes, condos, manufactured homes, and rural properties are all eligible
  • LLC ownership: Properties can be held in an LLC

Prior bankruptcy requires a two-year waiting period before applying.

View Bank Statement Loan Requirements

Today’s Bank Statement Mortgage Loan Rates in North Dakota

As a national direct-to-consumer lender, Griffin Funding cuts out the broker markup and keeps non-QM (non-qualified mortgage) rates competitive. Your specific rate depends on your credit score, down payment, loan amount, and buydown points.

North Dakota Housing Markets for Self-Employed Buyers

From the Fargo, Bismarck, and Grand Forks metros with the most economic activity to lower-cost regional cities and energy- and river-driven communities, North Dakota has real options for self-employed buyers at every price point. Here’s where borrowers are buying across the state.

Major Metros

  • Fargo: North Dakota, through a coalition led by NDSU in Fargo, won a National Science Foundation award with funding up to $160 million for an agriculture technology research hub. Fargo’s other large employers, Sanford Health and Essentia Health, along with a growing software sector, outsource contract work rather than hiring for every function, which gives developers, marketers, and specialty trades more potential clients than anywhere else in the state. Fargo also requires less monthly deposit volume than Bismarck.
  • Bismarck: The State of North Dakota is the largest employer in the Bismarck-Mandan area with roughly 4,500 workers, followed closely by Sanford Health. Government agencies and hospitals contract out work on schedules that hold through slow years. As the state capital and a key regional hub, Bismarck serves a broad commercial area extending into surrounding parts of central North Dakota, so your service area reaches well past city limits. Bismarck asks for the most monthly deposit volume on this list, so it rewards a few solid years of statements.
  • Grand Forks: Grand Forks built GrandSKY, a 217-acre commercial drone park in a Unmanned and Autonomous Systems (UAS) sector that, across Grand Forks, employs about 1,400 people as of 2025, with average annual wages around $106,000. Defense contractors and autonomous-systems firms rely heavily on outside engineering, machining, software, and facilities work, which suits consultants and technical trades who bill by project. 
  • Minot: Minot Air Force Base contributed $621.6 million to the local economy in fiscal 2023, contributing to over 8,400 jobs on the base itself and in the larger Minot area. Those wages circulate into home services, auto work, and construction. Minot also serves as the trade hub for northern North Dakota, which widens your service area. It needs meaningfully less monthly deposit volume than Fargo or Bismarck, making it the most reachable of the state’s major markets.

Affordable Markets

  • Devils Lake: Travel and tourism accounts for 967 jobs in Devils Lake and Ramsey County, about 11.4% of all county employment, with walleye tournaments bringing roughly $2 million into the area in a single year. Guides, bait shops, boat mechanics, lodging operators, and food businesses live off that season, and grain farming carries the rest of the year. Prices sit well below the state’s major metros, making it a realistic first purchase while your statement history is short.
  • Wahpeton: Manufacturing employs 18.4% of Wahpeton’s workforce, nearly triple the statewide share, led by Bobcat Company’s compact equipment operations. That concentration creates steady demand for machining, fabrication, welding, and industrial maintenance, and North Dakota State College of Science keeps skilled labor local. Wahpeton carries the lowest monthly deposit requirement on this list, so it is the easiest market on this page to qualify for.
  • Valley City: Valley City State University is one of the largest employers in the region, and local manufacturers turn out farm machinery, electronics, and plastics in a town of under 7,000. A university payroll and an industrial base in a small population means less competition for the service and trade work both generate. Entry prices run among the lowest in North Dakota, keeping the qualifying bar low.

Lifestyle Markets

  • Mandan: Mandan is home to Marathon’s Mandan Refinery, the largest in North Dakota at 72,000 barrels per day, and refineries run on outside contractors for turnarounds, maintenance, welding, and inspection work. You get that industrial client base along with a historic downtown district, Missouri River access, and the Bismarck job market minutes away. For a buyer who wants riverfront living without losing a capital-city customer base, Mandan does both below Bismarck’s prices.
  • Jamestown: Jamestown runs on Cavendish Farms’ potato processing operation, the University of Jamestown, and Jamestown Regional Medical Center, spanning food production, education, and healthcare in a city of over 15,600, per U.S. Census data. Processing plants and hospitals contract out maintenance, sanitation, logistics, and skilled trades continuously. Only Wahpeton asks for less monthly deposit volume on this list, so Jamestown offers institutional clients at close to the lowest qualifying bar in the state.

How much needs to flow through your business account to buy in each of these markets? We ran the same formula Griffin Funding publishes for America’s 50 largest metros on North Dakota’s markets. The table below shows the average single-family home value, the estimated monthly payment, and the monthly and 12-month business deposits needed to qualify with a bank statement loan. A lower expense factor may apply with a CPA letter, reducing the required deposits.

Bank Statement Buying Power in North Dakota: Monthly Business Deposits Needed to Buy the Average Home

Metro Avg. Home Value Est. Monthly Payment (PITIA) Business Deposits Needed / Month 12-Month Deposit Total
Wahpeton $231,067 $1,463 $6,504 $78,047
Jamestown $233,091 $1,476 $6,561 $78,731
Minot $279,432 $1,770 $7,866 $94,386
Grand Forks $303,813 $1,924 $8,552 $102,627
Fargo $334,628 $2,119 $9,420 $113,036
Williston $362,321 $2,294 $10,198 $122,381
Bismarck $374,258 $2,370 $10,534 $126,412

*Estimates are hypothetical illustrations based on 12 months of business bank statements with a 50% expense factor (a lower expense factor may apply with a CPA letter), a 20% down payment (available on loan amounts up to $3 million), a 6.99% fixed interest rate (7.102% APR), 30-year amortization, North Dakota’s average effective property tax rate of 0.92% as published on our property tax by state page, and homeowners insurance estimated at 0.30% of home value annually. Qualifying assumes a 45% debt-to-income ratio; DTI includes all monthly debt obligations such as auto loans, credit cards, and student loans, and these figures assume no monthly debt other than the mortgage payment. Actual property taxes vary by city and county in North Dakota, and actual insurance and HOA dues vary by property. Home values are Zillow ZHVI averages for single-family homes by metro, data through June 2026. Mandan falls within the Bismarck metro, so it is not listed separately above; Devils Lake and Valley City are not tracked as standalone metros in the Zillow series. This is not a rate quote, an advertisement of currently available terms, a loan offer, a pre-qualification, or a guarantee of approval; actual rates, APRs, and qualifying requirements vary by borrower, property, and program. Try our Bank Statement Loan Calculator to run your own numbers.

Free Tools for Self-Employed Borrowers in North Dakota

Run the numbers before you commit. These free tools give you an instant read on your buying power and the North Dakota market.

Apply for a Bank Statement Home Loan in North Dakota

Self-employed borrowers with non-traditional income still have options to purchase property in North Dakota. With a bank statement home loan, you can qualify for up to $4.5 million in financing, no tax returns or pay stubs required. Down payments start at 10% for qualified borrowers.

Griffin Funding has helped self-employed borrowers, small business owners, freelancers, tradespeople, and independent contractors qualify for bank statement mortgage loans across North Dakota. We lend throughout the entire state, from Fargo, Bismarck, and Grand Forks to Mandan, Williston, and Jamestown, and the value markets of Devils Lake, Wahpeton, and Valley City.

Reach out today to learn more about how to qualify for a mortgage in North Dakota if you’re self-employed. If you’re ready to get pre-approved and lock in your rate, get started online.

Frequently Asked Questions

Griffin Funding looks for healthy, stable accounts when reviewing North Dakota bank statement loan applications: positive balances, few or no overdrafts, and consistent deposits that reflect ongoing business income. One-time transfers between accounts and unexplained cash deposits are excluded from the income calculation, since those don’t represent reliable earnings. You’ll also need to show adequate reserves remaining after closing.

Griffin Funding accepts both personal and business bank statements for North Dakota bank statement loans. To calculate your qualifying income, eligible deposits are added up over 12 or 24 months and divided by the number of months. Personal statements count 100% of deposits toward income. Business statements apply a 50% expense factor by default, which can go as low as 10% depending on your business type and number of employees. Transfers and unexplained cash deposits are excluded before the calculation runs.

Griffin Funding requires the last 12 or 24 months of personal or business bank statements. You’ll also need to provide personal ID, proof of North Dakota residency, a credit authorization, a completed loan application, business documentation, and a purchase agreement. See our full bank statement loan document checklist to help you prepare ahead of time.

Qualifying for a North Dakota bank statement loan comes down to four main things: your down payment, your credit score, your self-employment history, and your bank statements. Griffin Funding accepts borrowers with a 620 minimum credit score and at least two years of self-employment. A loan officer will review your deposit history to determine your qualifying income and eligible loan amount.

Bank statement loans are primarily used to purchase a primary residence. Griffin Funding’s North Dakota bank statement loans are available for a range of property types, including single-family homes, multi-family homes, townhomes, condos, manufactured homes, and rural properties. That flexibility fits everything from a primary residence in Fargo to a riverfront home in Mandan.

Griffin Funding typically closes North Dakota bank statement loans in 30 days or less. Once closed, funds are usually disbursed the same day or the following business day, once the county recorder records the deed. To avoid delays, have your documents ready before you apply and stay responsive to lender requests.

Yes. If you already own a home in North Dakota, a bank statement cash-out refinance lets you tap existing equity without tax returns, so you can put those funds toward your next purchase or improvement. Cash-out refinances are subject to a mandatory 3-day waiting period before funding; purchase loans are not.