Any lenders we used disregarded those balances as assets. Perhaps because we certainly had others available!
Were you shooting for a loan of less than 1/2 the value of your home? Most lenders will loan you 1/2 the value of home without any documentation... or income verification.
This is a house worth over 1MM most likely and they only took out a 400k mtg when they bought it for 650k.. now that mortgage may or may not have been paid off... and/or they may have used this 500k to pay that off and liquify some equity.. or they could have taken a true second. The first 2 would have been NO brainers for any bank to do.. the third option would have just been a matter of how close that second plus the first came to the homes value.
Like I said this article is dubious at best.