Getting a Mortgage with RSU Income: What Lenders Actually Accept

A senior software engineer earning $250k of base and $300k of RSUs has $550k of gross comp, but only the first $250k may count for mortgage underwriting at a conventional lender. RSU income is variable comp under GSE guidelines, which require a documented two-year history and reasonable expectation of continuance. Brand-new RSU grants, first-year vesting, or single-employer concentration can all get the income excluded.

The result: high-income tech employees frequently can’t qualify for the house their total comp would suggest, unless they work with a lender who understands RSU income or a private-bank jumbo program that uses alternative qualification methods. The gap between “how much could I borrow” and “how much does Fannie Mae say I could borrow” can be several million dollars for senior tech workers.

This guide covers what underwriters actually accept, how to document RSU income for maximum count-in, alternative qualification methods (asset depletion, pledged assets, stated-income jumbo), and how pre-IPO equity gets treated.

The Fannie/Freddie RSU rule

Fannie Mae Selling Guide B3-3.1-09 and the equivalent Freddie Mac guidance treat RSU income as variable income. For variable income to count, the borrower must show:

A two-year history of receipt. Two complete calendar years of RSU vesting, documented by W-2, vesting schedules, and account statements.
Continuation likelihood. The lender must document that the income will continue for at least three more years from the note date. This typically requires unvested RSUs extending at least three years forward and a letter from the employer confirming the grant.
A reasonable averaging method. Most underwriters take the average of the past two years of vested RSU income as the qualifying monthly income.

A borrower at a company for 18 months, or who just received their first grant, will generally not have two years of history and gets zero count-in on RSUs under conventional underwriting.

A borrower at a company for three years with consistent vesting gets averaging. Year 1 RSU income $100k, Year 2 $180k. Qualifying RSU income: ($100k + $180k) / 2 / 12 = $11,667 per month. This gets added to base salary income in the DTI calculation.

Dramatic year-over-year increases (from $100k to $300k) often get averaged rather than trended. Underwriters rarely credit trajectory; they credit stability. A borrower with a growing income trend may want to wait for the higher year to become the “current” year and re-average.

Pre-IPO RSUs and the underwriting vacuum

Pre-IPO RSUs with double-trigger vesting have no current tax value (no W-2 income until IPO) and no market price. From a conventional lender’s perspective, they are invisible. A borrower with $2M of vested-but-not-liquid pre-IPO RSUs cannot use them as income or assets for underwriting at most banks.

Some private banks and tech-specific lenders (First Republic historically, certain boutique firms) have offered programs that credit pre-IPO equity as either (a) pledgeable assets at a discount to 409A value, or (b) qualifying income when the liquidity event is near. Post-First-Republic, the landscape is thinner but programs still exist at JPM Private Bank, Goldman Private Wealth, and similar.

Post-IPO but pre-lock-up-expiration, the same stock is publicly traded but contractually unsellable. This is the “180-day dead zone” after an IPO. Some lenders will credit it as pledged asset at a discount to current price reflecting the lockup.

Asset depletion loans

An asset depletion loan uses liquid investable assets as a proxy for income. The lender divides the asset base by a term (often 360 months, or the borrower’s remaining expected life, or the loan term) and uses that as qualifying monthly income.

Example. $4M of liquid investable assets (stocks, bonds, savings, excluding retirement accounts or only partially counting them). Using a 360-month divisor, qualifying income is $11,111 per month. Added to base salary of $20,833 per month ($250k annual), total qualifying income is $31,944, supporting a DTI ratio on about $10k of monthly housing expense.

Different lenders use different divisors (some are 240 months, some 360, some tied to loan term). Retirement accounts are sometimes counted at 70% (reflecting tax on withdrawal) if the borrower is under 59.5, full value if over. Taxable brokerage is usually counted at 70-80% of current value.

Best for: high-net-worth borrowers whose current employment income is modest or variable. Common for founders, early retirees, executives between roles, and self-employed consultants.

Pledged asset loans and securities-based lending

A pledged asset mortgage uses the borrower’s brokerage account as collateral in lieu of a cash down payment. The borrower pledges, say, $1M of taxable brokerage assets. The bank lends 100% of the home price (or a higher LTV than usual) with a lien on both the house and the pledged assets.

Advantages. No cash down payment required, no selling of appreciated stock (avoiding capital gains tax), no PMI because the effective LTV is below the trigger. Assets continue to grow and produce dividends inside the pledged account.

Risks. If the pledged assets drop in value below a threshold, the bank can issue a margin call or force rebalancing. Pledged account securities are often restricted from being sold (because that would release the collateral). And the mortgage rate is typically slightly higher than a cash-down mortgage to compensate for the structural complexity.

Best for: borrowers with significant taxable brokerage assets who do not want to liquidate to fund the down payment. Common at private banks as part of a broader relationship (checking, investment management, mortgage bundled).

Stated income and bank statement loans

“Stated income” mortgages, which peaked in 2006 and largely disappeared after Dodd-Frank, have returned in a narrower form under the Qualified Mortgage (QM) patch. Current stated-income programs typically verify assets and employment but accept borrower-stated income without full tax-return documentation.

Rate premium is meaningful (50-150 basis points above conventional rates). Down payment requirements are usually 20-30%.

Bank statement loans use 12-24 months of bank deposits as the income proxy. Useful for self-employed borrowers, founders with irregular draws, and high-income earners whose W-2 understates their actual cash inflow.

These programs have niche uses. Most W-2 tech employees should not use them because a conventional loan or asset-depletion loan is cheaper.

Jumbo and super-jumbo programs

Any loan above the conforming loan limit ($806,500 in most counties, $1,209,750 in high-cost counties as of 2025) is a jumbo loan. Super-jumbo typically starts at $2M and goes up.

Jumbo underwriting is done by the lender (or a portfolio holder) directly, not sold to Fannie/Freddie, which means the lender has flexibility on how they count income. Some jumbo programs explicitly accept RSU income with only one year of history, or without a 3-year continuation. Private banks often count RSU income at 100% of current run-rate without averaging.

Rate differentials vary. During some periods, jumbo rates are lower than conforming (because the borrower profile is higher quality). During others, jumbo rates are 25-50 basis points higher.

For high-earning tech employees buying in expensive markets, jumbo is usually the right product because the loan size exceeds conforming anyway. Shop at least three jumbo lenders; RSU income credit varies widely.

The DTI calculation with RSU income

Front-end DTI (housing expense / qualifying income) and back-end DTI (housing plus other debt / qualifying income) are the key ratios. Conforming loans generally cap back-end DTI at 43% (with overrides up to 50% for well-qualified borrowers). Jumbo programs often allow back-end DTI up to 45-50%.

Example. Borrower has $250k base + $150k averaged RSU = $400k qualifying income, or $33,333 per month. A 43% back-end DTI allows $14,333 per month of total debt service. Subtract $1,000 of existing auto and student loan debt, $13,333 remains for housing. At 7.0% on a 30-year fixed, that supports roughly $2M of loan balance at current prop tax and insurance.

Without RSU income count-in, the same borrower has $250k / 12 = $20,833 per month of qualifying income. 43% DTI = $8,958 of total debt. $7,958 remains for housing, supporting about $1.2M of loan.

That $800k difference is the value of getting the RSU income counted.

Frequently asked

Does my pre-IPO private-company stock count for anything? At most conventional lenders, no. At some private banks, yes, at a discount to 409A or last-round value and only as pledged asset collateral (not as income).

What if I just received my first grant? You have zero RSU qualifying income under conventional underwriting. Wait 24+ months for history, or work with a lender that accepts a shorter history (some jumbo programs accept 12 months with a strong grant schedule going forward).

How do underwriters handle bonus income vs RSU income? Similar treatment. Both require two-year history. Some underwriters combine them into “variable income” with a single average. Others break them out. The net effect is usually the same.

Can I use vested but unsold RSU shares as assets? Yes. Vested shares in a brokerage account count as liquid assets. Shares still in the plan administrator (Shareworks, E*Trade) before being transferred out might count at a discount because of transfer complications; confirm with the lender.

What about the IPO bonus year that spiked my income? A one-year spike from an IPO tax-cliff event typically gets backed out of averaging because it is not recurring. Lenders look at the “normalized” run-rate excluding one-time events.

Next step

Before shopping for a house, shop for a lender. The mortgage qualification estimator estimates how much RSU income different programs will credit. For loans above $1.5M, work with a mortgage broker or private banker who regularly underwrites tech borrowers. The RSU-friendly jumbo lenders will qualify you for meaningfully more house than the standard GSE-conforming route.