Mortgage Financing
Mortgage Financing
The first step to begin your journey into home ownership is to get pre-approved for a mortgage. Using a local company that you can meet with a mortgage officer face to face often saves a great deal of frustration. Working with a real person, not a voice on the phone, can make the process go much more smoothly.
A pre-approval can be fairly simple. The mortgage officer will ask for income information, debt ratio, and pull your credit. Based on the information they will tell you what you qualify for and what, based on that qualification, you should consider a comfortable range for a purchase. You might qualify for more than realistically you want to spend, you still have to eat! And being house poor is not fun!
Once you offer is accepted on a home, you usually have up to 6 to 10 days to complete the mortgage process. Do it as soon as possible, these days the mortgage process is more regulated and complicated than in the past. Be ready to submit any documents your loan officer asks for in a timely manor.
After you receive a loan commitment and you are on your way to closing, do NOT buy anything with your credit cards. The lenders will pull your credit again before closing to make sure you have the funds to close and no further debt has been incurred. And same with deposits, if they see a large deposit that does not relate to your income, they will question that also.
Most commitments come with "conditions", be vigilant about getting the lender any information or paperwork they need from you so you can be clear to close on time.
Your Realtor will keep you informed on dates that have to be met, you have to make sure you give your mortgage officer everything they need quickly for those dates to be met and have a smooth closing on settlement day.
