Before you can buy a house and before you should even apply for a mortgage you need to take some time to find out just what you can afford for your new home. Only then should you start shopping for a good mortgage. It is very useful to get prequalify for a mortgage and it is even better to become preapproved. These are great because when you are negotiating with the seller for the home they know that you will be getting a mortgage with no problem because you practically have it already, this gives you an edge over any other party who is interested in the house.
The prequalification process is simple and quick. All you have to do is give the lender your info and they will work out an estimate of what they would lend you towards your new home. They will want to look at your credit report, your income and employment and your debts and assets in order to help them decide how much you can afford. The prequalification estimate is not legally binding to the lender because they have not had a chance to make sure that all of the things you gave them were accurate or true, as long as you are honest they usually are too. Prequalification goes a long way to show your worth to sellers.
Preapproval is one step closer to your actual mortgage. With this the lender will verify all of the information that you gave them above to make sure that you are on the level. You will get a piece of paper from the lender letting any seller that you will have no trouble getting a mortgage from them for a certain amount of money as long as it is within a certain time frame. Prequalification is usually free but preapproval is not. The fee is generally small and is just there to cover the cost of getting your credit report and things like that.
These are very useful to you when you are in the market for a new home. Sellers will see you as someone they want to sell to and you will not have to worry about getting your hopes up for buying a home only to get rejected by the lender. Even your closing will go much faster because all of the work has been done already in the preapproval stage. Just make sure that if something comes up and your financial situation has changed since the letter was written you let your lender know as this could change the preapproval.
Martin Lukac, represents http://www.RateEmpire.com, a finance web-company specializing in real estate/mortgage market. We specialize in daily updates, rate predictions, mortgage rates and more. Find low home loan mortgage interest rates from hundreds of mortgage companies! Visit http://www.RateEmpire.com today
