Understanding The Mortgage Process

The feeling of closing on your first home is a feeling you will never forget. For most people, this is the biggest purchase of their lives and we are committed to making it an easy-to-understand process. Here is our Better Lending breakdown of a mortgage loan.

The first thing you will do is talk to a lender and get pre-approved. This will help us get a financial snapshot of the situation. Following this you will submit documents like a pay stub, W-2, and banks statements, this will verify your application. Once all of this is submitted the lender will run a credit check and this will paint a picture to make sure you can qualify for the home in question. By the time this is done the lending officer and the real estate agent will be buttoning up the contract to submit to underwriting. During this point of the loan remember to have patience, we understand the excitement of moving into a new home and the stress it can bring but nothing can be missed or overlooked.

This brings us to getting the appraisal on the home. The appraisal is a very important step of the process because this will give the lender the correct evaluation of the property. Now that the lender has the appropriate value of the home they can start the underwriting, here is where they make sure everything is documented correctly and passes federal and state guidelines to get the loan approved. With everything submitted correctly you should be good to move into closing disclosure. This is where you will find out the final evaluation of the home and the fees due at closing. Speaking of closing once the at finished you will move into what is called “clear to close”. This is where a scheduled date is made to close on the home and get the keys to move in. This mortgage process may sound a bit confusing so in the following weeks we will be breaking down each task in detail. Check back next week for step one, getting the application started!