Buying a home with RSUs in Austin: how lenders treat restricted stock

Educational, not tax, legal or lending advice — confirm with your CPA and lender. I am a real estate broker. Lenders, including lenders who follow Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac rules, set their own requirements, and the rules below can change. Read the live sources linked in the citations and ask your lender and your CPA about your own facts.

Only vested and distributed stock counts. Fannie Mae’s Selling Guide section B3-3.3-07, “Restricted Stock Units and Restricted Stock Employment Income” (dated 10/07/2026), says restricted stock must have vested and been distributed to the borrower without restrictions, and that unvested RSUs are not income. A sign-on bonus paid as restricted stock is not eligible.

• History, time-based awards: a minimum 12-month history from the current employer is required.
• History, performance-based awards: a minimum two-year history is recommended; 12 months or more may be acceptable with offsetting factors.
• Continuance: for a one-time time-based award, the vesting schedule must show the income is expected to continue for at least three years from the application date. For recurring time-based and performance-based awards, the lender need not verify continuance unless it has reason to doubt it.
• Calculation: a 200-day moving average of the share price times the total number of distributed vested shares (pre-tax) in the most recent 24 months, divided by 24 months. With 12 to 24 months of history, actual months received may be used.

The 200-day average is how the rule handles a volatile stock: it is not the price on the day shares vest. I summarized this section from the live page and I recommend you read it, or have your lender walk you through it, rather than quoting me.

Freddie Mac’s Guide Bulletin 2024-13 (October 2, 2024) updated the rules for restricted stock and RSUs in Guide Sections 5301.1 and 5303.1, for mortgages with Note dates on or after April 1, 2025 (sellers could implement immediately). It allows less than 24 months, but not less than 12 months, of history for performance-based RS and RSU when the borrower has 12 to 24 months with the current employer, with a written analysis and compensating factors. Recurring awards must be likely to continue for at least three years, and nonrecurring awards must have at least three years’ vesting and distribution remaining. It also replaced the 52-week average stock price with a 200-day simple moving average.

I read the bulletin PDF. I could not read the live Guide text for Section 5303.1, so ask your lender what the current Guide says.

Vested stock can be an acceptable source of funds. Fannie Mae’s Selling Guide section B3-4.3-01 says vested assets in the form of stocks, government bonds and mutual funds are acceptable sources of funds for down payment, closing costs and reserves if their value can be verified, and that the lender must determine the value net of any margin accounts. When used for reserves, 100 percent of the value so determined may be considered. If the value is at least 20 percent more than the funds needed, documentation of actual receipt of sale proceeds is not required; otherwise the proceeds must be documented. Unvested RSUs are not an asset, and non-vested stock options are not an acceptable source of funds.

In practice, lenders may require proof of liquidation or apply their own overlays, so ask yours. I did not verify Freddie Mac’s asset rules from a primary source.

Shares under a lockup are not liquid. Lockups bar insiders such as employees from selling for a set period after an IPO, with terms that vary and must be disclosed in the prospectus, and “most” are described as 180 days. I could not open the Investor.gov page directly, so this is from search-result summaries of it and of the SEC’s older answer on lockups. A lender will not treat shares you cannot sell as usable funds, so read the prospectus for your company, and ask your lender how it treats the shares at each point in the lockup.

Plan your closing around your vest dates and your lender’s documentation. Ask your lender how many months of vested distributions it needs, what it needs to see on the day of application, and whether a vest during escrow changes anything. For tax, the IRS’s Tax Topic 427 explains stock options (for incentive stock options you generally do not include an amount in gross income at grant or exercise, but you may owe alternative minimum tax; for nonqualified stock options you generally include the fair market value of the stock received at exercise). RSUs are generally taxed as ordinary wage income when shares are delivered, but I did not find a single general IRS consumer page for them, so ask your CPA. Withholding at vest may not equal your final tax; ask your CPA to estimate.

FHFA announced a 2026 baseline conforming loan limit of $832,750. FHFA’s county list shows a one-unit limit of $832,750 for Travis, Williamson, Hays and Burnet counties; Travis County is not a high-cost area. A loan above the limit is a jumbo loan, which Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac cannot purchase. Many West Austin loans will be larger than $832,750, in which case your lender’s own jumbo rules apply and its treatment of RSUs and stock assets can differ from the agency guides above. That is an inference, not a market statistic: ask your lender where your loan sits.

The Texas Comptroller says Texas has no state income tax; property taxes are local. California’s Franchise Tax Board says its personal income tax rates range from 1 percent to 12.3 percent, with an additional 1 percent on taxable income above $1,000,000, for a maximum rate of 13.3 percent. Washington has no personal income tax per the Legislature’s 2026 tax guide, but the Department of Revenue describes a capital gains excise tax of 7 percent on the first $1 million of taxable Washington capital gains and 9.9 percent above $1,000,000, beginning tax year 2025, with stocks taxable and real estate exempt.

Moving to Texas does not retroactively erase a tax another state may owe on equity you earned there, and federal tax still applies. How equity earned in one state is allocated when you move is a CPA question.

I make sure the numbers you collect connect to the home you are buying: what the monthly cost will be (see the monthly-costs worksheet), whether a purchase timeline fits your vest dates, and which lender and CPA questions to ask before you write an offer. I do not give lending or tax advice, and I will say so every time.

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