Navigating Your Home Buying Experience
A mortgage is likely to be the largest and longest loan of your life. As a home buyer, you’ll want to be in the best financial shape possible to qualify for a good rate and get the right loan for your needs. It can be hard to know where to get started, but we’ve got you covered.
Here are three ways to make sure you get the best possible mortgage:
Make Loan Decisions Early – And Stick To Them
Regulations on mortgage closings make it very important that you make loan-related decisions early and stick with those decisions if you don’t want the closing delayed. Mortgage providers are required to give you three days to review the Closing Disclosure (CD) before a settlement can occur. Changes that affect you as the buyer that are made after the CD is delivered could result in an additional waiting period. So if you decided to change your down payment amount or loan program, for instance, the loan would need to be reviewed all over again, and new closing documents would have to be prepared. Both would delay the closing.
Keep the Mortgage Advisor in the Loop
Once you have started the mortgage application process, big purchases should be avoided so that it will not affect your credit-worthiness. For instance, you should wait on buying a new car or even applying for a new credit card. In today’s world, lenders are required to monitor a borrower’s credit activity through closing. Lenders will know about new debt incurred during the mortgage process even if it’s not disclosed. Likewise, employment must be confirmed prior to closing, so starting a new job could create a problem, too. As great as it might be, an undisclosed new job can have a chilling effect on the mortgage approval or closing date.
Documentation Is King
As you move through the mortgage process, the level of documentation requested by your financial provider can be irritating at best. Investors are making the rules, and they require high levels of documentation – multiple bank statements, pay stubs, tax returns, IRS documentation of filed income, documentation on divorces and other court orders, confirmation of insurance, etc. They basically want documentation on every dollar going into or out of the purchase and affecting your credit standing. While it might feel excessive, the quicker you can supply all documents, the faster the underwriting process will move.
