First Two Months Payments in Reserves?

[Hooosier]

We have been talking with our mortgage broker for our pre-approval and she just ran our credit yesterday for the first time so she could give us more exact numbers for the pre-approval.  My middle score was 797 and my wife's was 705.

She mentioned we will need to show enough assets to cover the downpayment (obviously) and the first two months payments in reserves.  Is this normal?  This is the first time she has mentioned needing the first two months payments in reserves and with our strong credit scores I was surprised to hear this.  Is it standard operating procedure for most lenders?

[StartingOver10]

If you are working with a mortgage broker and not someone that actually underwrites and funds their own loans, it is not unusal for the mortgage broker to give you much more broad criteria because they don't know where they are placing the loan yet. So, she is asking for reserves. Did you ask her if a 401k or other retirement type account or asset account can be used toward reserves?

[Peter1142]

Some conventional programs require reserves (and some don't)...

[DallasLoanGuy]

maybe they have a preferred program that requires reserves..... 

fannie doesnt require them.... most lenders do not add that guideline to fannie....

so who knows.

ask why reserves are required.  i would like to know.

[Revelate]

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@DallasLoanGuy wrote:

maybe they have a preferred program that requires reserves..... 

fannie doesnt require them.... most lenders do not add that guideline to fannie....

so who knows.

ask why reserves are required.  i would like to know.

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Question for you, I was looking through the Fannie eligibility guide on page 4:

https://www.fanniemae.com/content/eligibility_information/eligibility-matrix.pdf

and for some of their purchases under manual underwriting seems like they require reserves?  I assume the numberthe minimum reserves column is expressed in months?  Does this not bear out in the actual world?

[Peter1142]

That would appear to be manual underwriting only, not automated approvals