Side hustle surge upends traditional underwriting
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With more borrowers juggling side hustles, gig work, and complex tax profiles, traditional income reviews are slowing deals or killing them. AngelAi’s Angel Income promises instant, warranted calculations that keep loans moving and clients confident, writes Pavan Agarwal
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The mortgage industry is facing a shift that most lenders haven’t adjusted to yet. It’s not just rates or credit tightening that are making deals harder to close. Increasingly, the issue is income – and, more specifically, how that income is evaluated.
Traditional frameworks miss today’s real earnings Today’s borrowers are earning money very differently than they did even a few years ago. A 2025 Glassdoor report found that 57 percent of Gen Z workers now have at least one side hustle. Similar trends are emerging across millennials, with a late 2024 TransUnion report showing that 78 percent of millennials earn income from one or more gig platforms.
Pavan Agarwal is the CEO of Celligence LLC and Creator of AngelAi.
AngelAi has been developed by Celligence International, LLC, one of the fastest-growing fintech and AI companies. Celligence has engineered a novel AI that is evolving and self-generating neural cells that come together to solve complex problems. The Celligence AI is deterministic, not merely generative, and it delivers 100 percent accurate and trustworthy responses, as is required for financial transactions. At Celligence, a team of brilliant engineers (“Brillianeers”) is expanding the boundaries of the financial services industry through innovations in mobile applications, customer acquisition, retention algorithms, and AI-based process automation continuously filing new patents supporting our technology.
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“While the borrower has evolved, the process used to evaluate them has not. Traditional underwriting frameworks were designed for stable, single-source income, not for borrowers with multiple schedules, K-1s, or variable earnings across different entities”
Pavan Agarwal,
AngelAi
Published May 21, 2026
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“AngelAi’s latest app, Angel Income, was built to address this. Scenarios that would traditionally require multiple levels of underwriting review and several days of back and forth can now be completed in under six minutes”
Pavan Agarwal,
AngelAi
Income is no longer coming from a single employer or a clean W-2. Instead, it is often layered across multiple streams, including self-employment, gig work, partnerships, and business ownership. What was once considered a “complex borrower” is quickly becoming the standard borrower profile.
While the borrower has evolved, the process used to evaluate them has not. Traditional underwriting frameworks were designed for stable, single-source income, not for borrowers with multiple schedules,
K-1s, or variable earnings across different entities. As a result, there is a growing disconnect between what borrowers actually earn and how that income is traditionally evaluated in underwriting. In many cases, usable income is either overlooked or calculated conservatively simply because it does not fit neatly within the lenders’ underwriting capacity.
into DU and LP. What used to be considered an outlier or a complex scenario has become the norm.
Because nearly two-thirds of GSE repurchase demands stem from income-related errors, lenders have responded in ways that result in disparate outcomes for the borrower. These lenders either disregard valid income sources or miscalculate income that doesn’t align with their loan origination systems (LOS). As a result, many qualified families are routinely denied access to housing.
Angel Income: cuts through complexity, delivers clarity AngelAi’s latest app, Angel Income, was built to address this exact problem. Instead of forcing modern income profiles into outdated workflows, it analyzes income as it actually exists today. The system extracts and interprets data across multiple documents, including tax returns, schedules, and K-1s, ensuring that all usable income is captured, accurately calculated, and consistently applied.
What sets it apart is not only accuracy but also speed. Scenarios that would traditionally require multiple levels of underwriting review and several days of back and forth can now be completed in under six minutes. More importantly, the output is a warranted answer – definitive, transparent, and reliable – eliminating the ambiguity that often slows decisions and introduces risk into the process.
Neal Anthony, mortgage loan officer at Legacy Mortgage Group, has the same experience. He attributes more streamlined day-to-day operations to his use of the technology.
Compounding that issue, complex income significantly increases the time required for calculation and validation, introducing delays that put deals at risk. Files with multiple income sources often require multiple underwriting touches, additional documentation, and repeated reviews to reconcile inconsistencies or confirm calculations. What should be a straightforward determination of qualifying income can take days, sometimes longer, especially as conditions evolve throughout the process.
This shift is changing what a “qualified buyer” looks like. Many buyers today have the financial ability to purchase a home, but their income does not fit neatly into the systems most lenders are still using. Lenders’ underwriters require CPA level skills to analyze their income and determine what information to feed
“It helps me expedite the loan process by running those income calculations or those hard scenarios that I really don't have the time to do,” Anthony explains. “I plug that information into AngelAi, and it runs those calculations for me.”
For originators handling high volumes and complex files, the breadth-of-use cases matter just as much as speed. Angelo Datseris, president/CEO of Leverage Lending Group, describes the broader value simply: AngelAi “has definitely helped my business,” he says.
“It's basically information at your fingertips,” Datseris says, adding that it can answer questions about loan products, guidelines, or scenarios, help upload documentation, and run
difficult variable or self-employed income calculations with ease.
“It allows you to be more efficient while you can go about your daily business, bringing in that business.”
A fundamental change in how brokers operate
Taken as a whole, AngelAi – specifically bolstered by Angel Income – fundamentally changes how brokers operate. Instead of appearing uncertain to their clients and setting expectations for delays, they can now give on-the-spot clear and accurate guidance. Armed with AngelAi, loan originators rapidly build rapport with their customers and eliminate surprises that occur late into the transaction.
AngelAi eliminates closing surprises with instant, warranted answers at the initial point of sale. This ability to deliver fast, accurate income assessments allows brokers to maintain momentum, strengthen borrower confidence, and reduce the likelihood of a last-minute fallout.
In today’s market, where every deal matters and margins are tight, Angel Income is not only an operational improvement; it is a true competitive advantage. Modern borrowers have not become riskier – they’ve become more complex. The brokers who get the full picture of their income and deliver fast, definitive answers will be the ones who win.
AngelAi in action: the income calculation process
