In today’s market, the number of buyers are outweighing the number of sellers. This is specifically the case in Arizona which leads to a very competitive market. The high level of competition brings several offers on the same home within days of it being on the market. Fierce competition as a buyer forces you to find ways to make your offer STAND OUT next to others.
One great way to stand out is to get pre-approved before you start searching for a home. This will make the process run much smoother and give you a better chance at acquiring your new home. Having pre-approval before you start looking will give you an idea of the max amount you are able to purchase to ensure you are looking in the right price range at the beginning. There’s nothing worse than falling in love with a home only to find out it’s $30,000 more than what you can afford at the moment.
Another powerful way to use a pre-approval is to have a letter included with your offer stating that you are completely pre-approved and not just pre-qualified. Remember, a pre-qual is a step under an approval. It usually comes before documents are verified so the information is directly from a buyer. Pre-quals also come before all of this information is run through an AUS and given an approved/eligible status. The verification step and the approval from the underwriting system makes the pre-approval stand out and look much more attractive when next to a pre-qualified buyer’s offer.
The Approval Process
The approval process starts with an application. Once you fill out the application, you will provide me with information regarding your credit, debt, income, work history and residential history. A lot of these things can be found within a credit report which we shall pull and go over together. If your credit score is close but not quite where it needs to be, we shall work together to determine what can be done to increase your score in the shortest amount of time. Sometimes it’s minor things such as paying down a credit card balance, getting a collection deleted, increasing your total available credit or removing an error on your report.
We can then do a rapid re-score which gives us the improved score without having to wait 30+ days for an update.
Everything is then verified which can be done fairly quickly depending on how soon you can get all of the required documents in to me.
We can then determine the total amount you are approved for based on the numbers that we calculated using your Debt to Income (DTI) and a monthly amount you’ve budgeted for to cover your mortgage payment. Keep in mind that your mortgage payment includes principal, interest, tax, insurance and in some cases an HOA.
From there we connect you with one of our agent partners and get you out on a tour to look at homes.
While you’re out shopping for a home, my team and I will communicate effectively and keep you updated on the status of your loan.
That pretty much sums up the process. There are a few other parts but applying for a mortgage doesn’t have to be a long drawn-out process. Our goal is to make it a smooth, easy and enjoyable undertaking.
Are You Ready To Apply For a Loan?
