[FireBeyond]

"put down 20% on a million dollar house" - maybe, or maybe not. Your bank might still look at it as a gift, and you still run into issues.

For example, Mike Davidson (founder of Newsvine) describes in a blog about building a $1.1M home after he sold to MSNBC (http://www.ahousebythepark.com/journal/archive/category/fina...):

"My credit is great and I have a strong cash position, but even so, getting a jumbo loan is seemingly 10x more difficult than it has historically been."

"Then, a whole two months into the process, they wanted me to go to my HR department and provide written compensation guarantees using language my HR department was not comfortable with (and neither was I, to be frank)."

"All this for someone who has perfect credit, a comfortable salary, plenty of equity in his property, and the ability to pay off the entire house tomorrow if necessary."

[ChuckMcM]

I made the down payment on my first house selling my ISO shares, and then when we sold that house and moved to a slightly larger house my wife and I both sold shares we had in ISOs to make a larger downpayment. Neither time did the bank consider it a 'gift' (nor did the IRS, they took their pound of flesh too)

During the dot.com boom there was an interesting series in the newspaper about people who took their IPO proceeds and immediately sold them and bought a house. The question was "Gee, look at all the future growth they are giving up by converting hot stocks into stodgy real estate."