How to Buy a Home in Seattle With Your RSUs
April 30, 2026 · Olsen Anderson
You’ve been watching your vesting schedule like a countdown clock. Here’s how to actually use it.
If you work at Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Meta, or any of the other tech companies anchored to the Seattle metro, a meaningful portion of your compensation isn’t showing up as salary. It’s sitting in a vesting schedule, restricted stock units that turn into real money at predictable intervals. And if you’ve been living in Capitol Hill, Ballard, or Phinney Ridge long enough to know you want to stay, that vesting schedule might be the most direct path to owning a home in the neighborhood you’ve already chosen.
The mechanics of using RSUs for a down payment are straightforward once you understand them. The tax part is where most people get surprised. And the mortgage part is where it pays to know which lenders actually understand how tech compensation works.
Here’s how to think through all of it.
What RSUs actually are, and when the money is real
An RSU is a promise from your employer to give you shares of company stock on a future date, provided you meet certain conditions, usually staying employed through a vesting cliff. When those shares vest, they become yours. At that moment, and not before, they’re worth something you can act on.
A typical vesting schedule at a company like Amazon looks like this: you’re granted 1,000 shares when you’re hired, vesting over four years in quarterly or annual increments. After year one, 250 shares are yours. After year two, another 250. And so on. The grant date doesn’t matter for tax purposes. The vesting date does.
Once shares vest, you have options. You can hold them, hoping the stock appreciates further. You can sell them immediately and convert to cash. Or you can use the vested shares as collateral for a loan. For most people buying a home, the practical move is to sell the shares and use the cash proceeds as your down payment. Simple, but the tax implications change what you actually keep.
The tax reality before you plan around a number
This is where people get tripped up. When your RSUs vest, the fair market value of the shares is considered ordinary income and taxed at your marginal rate, just like your wages. Your employer reports this on your W-2 and withholds taxes automatically, but most employers use a flat supplemental income tax rate around 22% for federal income tax. If you’re a software engineer or program manager in Seattle earning $180,000 base with $100,000 in annual RSU vesting, your actual marginal rate is likely 32–35% federal. The 22% withholding means you’re probably underpaying by 10–13 percentage points on every vest.
The practical implication: don’t plan your down payment around the gross value of your vesting shares. Plan around what you’ll net after taxes. A $200,000 RSU vest doesn’t produce $200,000 in usable cash. At a combined effective rate of 35%, you’re looking at roughly $130,000 after federal income tax, Social Security, and Medicare. That’s still a real down payment on a Capitol Hill townhome, just not the number you saw in your equity statement.
When you eventually sell the vested shares, a second tax event happens. If you hold the shares more than one year after vesting before selling, any gains are taxed at long-term capital gains rates, which are lower than ordinary income rates. If you sell immediately at vesting, the gain is minimal, you’re selling at roughly the same price the shares were valued at when they vested, so there’s little or no additional tax. Most people buying a home sell the shares quickly and move on.
Washington has no state income tax. The tax hit on RSU vesting is federal plus FICA only. If you’ve moved here from California or New York, your net RSU proceeds are meaningfully larger here.
One practical step worth taking before you start counting on a specific number: talk to a CPA or financial advisor about your vesting schedule and tax exposure. The calculation is specific to your total income, your filing status, and how much is already withheld from your regular paycheck.
Two ways to use RSUs for a home purchase
Option 1: Sell and use the proceeds as a cash down payment
This is the most common approach, and the most straightforward. You sell vested shares, the proceeds land in your brokerage or bank account, and that cash becomes your down payment. Lenders treat it the same as any other asset, they’ll want to see it sitting in an account for 60 days before closing (the “seasoning” requirement) and they’ll ask for documentation showing where it came from.
Option 2: Use RSU income to qualify for a larger mortgage
Even if you don’t sell shares for a down payment, your vesting RSUs can increase how much you’re able to borrow. Lenders will count RSU income toward your qualifying income, but they require at least two consecutive years of RSUs being granted and vested with your current employer, and the vesting schedule must show the income will continue for at least three years. Lenders apply a haircut to the RSU value to account for stock price volatility, typically using the 52-week average stock price, and no more than 35% of your qualifying income can be comprised of RSU compensation.
A Senior Software Engineer earning $180,000 in base salary plus $250,000 in annual RSU vesting gets treated as a $430,000 earner by the right wholesale lender, significantly expanding what you can qualify for.
What the Seattle market means for your numbers
The 2026 conforming loan limit for King County is $1,209,750 for single-family homes. For new construction townhomes in neighborhoods like Capitol Hill, Phinney Ridge, Ballard, and Queen Anne, where prices typically run $875,000 to $1,050,000, a 20% down payment ($175,000–$210,000) is the target if you want to avoid PMI and keep your loan conventional. That’s a meaningful but achievable number for someone with two to four years of Amazon or Microsoft vesting behind them.
What lenders actually need from you
Most big banks haven’t fully modernized their underwriting for tech compensation. The lenders that handle this well, often wholesale mortgage brokers and some regional lenders, accept 1-year RSU history rather than requiring two years, and treat stock option proceeds as qualifying assets. The difference between a lender who understands RSU income and one who doesn’t can be $100,000 or more in qualifying purchase power.
When you apply, you’ll typically need to provide: pay stubs and W-2s showing RSU income for the past two years; your RSU agreement and vesting schedule for the next three years; written verification of employment from your company’s HR or equity department; and bank or brokerage statements showing the seasoned cash from any shares you’ve sold.
The timing question
The ideal scenario: you start thinking about this six to twelve months before you want to buy. That gives you time to understand your tax position, let sold shares season in your account, and approach the mortgage process without pressure.
Presale purchases change the equation. If you’re buying a new construction home before it’s built, you sign a purchase agreement six to eighteen months before closing. Your down payment isn’t due until closing. That gives you time to let scheduled vests accumulate, manage the tax exposure, and season the cash properly. It’s one of the cleanest ways to use RSUs for a home purchase because the timeline is defined and predictable from the start.
What this looks like in practice
Say you’ve been at Amazon for three years. You have 400 shares vesting this year at roughly $220 per share, $88,000 in gross RSU income. After a combined effective rate of about 35%, you net approximately $57,000. With three years of accumulation and $40,000 in savings, that’s roughly $97,000, enough for a 10–15% down payment on a $700,000–$900,000 townhome in Capitol Hill.
You’re also getting $88,000 annually in RSU income that a savvy lender will count toward your qualifying income, which significantly expands what you can borrow on top of your salary.
A note on new construction
New construction townhomes in Seattle have one significant advantage for RSU buyers that resale homes don’t: the price is fixed, the timeline is known, and you’re not competing in a bidding war. In Seattle’s resale market, you’re routinely waiving inspections and submitting offers above asking under time pressure. New construction lets you sign a purchase agreement today, plan your vesting and tax strategy for the next year, and close when the home is ready.
That’s what we build. If you’re thinking about making a move, reach out to Nikki at nikki@olsenanderson.com or 206-565-2815, she knows every detail of what’s available, what’s coming, and what the timeline looks like.
This post is for informational purposes only and is not tax or financial advice. RSU taxation and mortgage qualification involve individual circumstances that vary significantly. Consult a qualified CPA and mortgage professional before making decisions based on your RSU compensation. Olsen Anderson is a residential developer and homebuilder, not a mortgage lender or financial advisor.