What is meant by liquidity reserves when applying for a loan?

What is meant by liquidity reserves when applying for a loan?

Lender · New York City, NY · Member since 2017 · 10 posts · 3 votes

When applying for a mortgage loan, it is important to find out the lenders' liquidity requirements before you even complete or submit a formal loan application. Part of the pre-application process at Atlas is to review a borrowers PFS (personal financial statement). That statement should list all the borrower’s current liquid assets including: personal bank accounts, stock accounts, cash value life insurance policies, and of course liquid assets that may be in a business account. Be sure you have statements to back-up what you list as of that date, since an underwriter may ask for them. Why is this so important? While you may have sufficient cash to close on a new property, nearly every lender will look at the liquid assets to determine if the applicant has sufficient fallback cash reserves post-closing. These reserves can vary from lender to lender and also by loan program. Cash liquidity reserves are also applicable for refinancings, even if the new loan is providing substantial cash-out to the borrower. In that case, the underwriter may be looking at pre-close rather than post-close reserves. Basically, the purpose of this review is to see just how long a borrower can weather a downturn or be able to come-up with cash in the event of a major urgent capital need. Any questions, let me know. 

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  • Davis, CA · Member since 2016 · 595 posts · 344 votes
    9y

    This just came up in my close.  I did conventional for 80, and heloc on my house for 20%.  They wanted to see an account... any account that had $20000 in it.  I showed them a retirement... all was well..  But if I didnt have that info/access to those funds... hosed.

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