Fannie Mae 2% Sellers Assist -- Security Deposit Included?

[Brandon Cao]

Hello Everyone,

For those experts in Fannie Mae guidelines, the 2% sellers assist exists for investment conventional loans. Say I have a fully rented out duplex investment property with the following information:

Agreement of Sale: Purchase price $73,400 assuming 2% Sellers assist
Therefore offer amount is actually ~$72,000 (I'm rounding)
For arguments sake let's assuming that the two tenants in the house have a grand total of $1000 in security deposits.

The seller must give the security deposits to the landlord during closing, but would that count as part of the sellers assist or does this count as a separate source of funds. I heard that Fannie Mae frowns on essentially putting down less than 20% on the property. In other words would the offer amount effectively become $73,000 because the security deposit counts as sellers assist or would I still receive the security deposit and the $1,400 sellers assist.