Hard money got me in, now I'm trying to figure out if conventional actually pencils on the way out

The assumption doing the most work is that six months of rate movement justifies the $2,800 extension cost. A 30-year conventional rate would need to drop to roughly 6.8 percent or below for the payment savings over the remaining loan life to meaningfully change the calculus, and the spread between 7.4 and that target has not moved that direction consistently in recent months, so you are paying $2,800 essentially to speculate on timing rather than to solve an underwriting problem.

The execution risk you named is the real variable, and it cuts both ways. If your wife's income or DTI is the constraint, starting the conventional application now, before the hard money matures, tells you in four to six weeks whether approval is real, and if it falls through you still have runway to extend rather than scrambling at maturity with no options. The worst position is finding out the approval does not work in September with the loan due in October.

What is the actual sticking point on the conventional side, is it DTI, self-employment income, or something on the property itself?

What's your DSCR on this thing if you run it standalone, not counting your personal income?

Because if that ratio clears 1.2 or better at the $940 payment, a DSCR loan sidesteps the wife-and-underwriter problem entirely. No personal income needed, no DTI conversation, just the rent vs. the payment.

The $2,800 to extend is real money but it buys you time to shop that route without the clock making the decision for you.

What nobody mentions: applying conventional mid-hard-money never fails on the property, it fails on the borrower's schedule versus the lender's.

The execution risk concern is real, but the number I want is your debt-to-income ratio before this property touches it, because that determines whether the conventional falls through on rate sensitivity or on you personally qualifying, and those two failure modes have different hedges.

If the DTI is the problem, a DSCR loan sidesteps your income entirely and prices somewhere between your two options right now, so the binary of conventional-or-extend has a third path worth pricing before October.

What does your other monthly debt service look like outside this property?