First Time Home Buyers Guide

When purchasing your first home, you should follow the first steps in the home-buying process. First, you should obtain a pre-approval letter from your mortgage planner. This should be done before any house hunting takes place, whether it be in person, over the phone, or online.

A mortgage pre-approval letter is a written statement saying that you should qualify for a particular mortgage program up to a certain loan amount. While a pre-approval does not guarantee your loan, it does provide several benefits to your home search. Here is a breakdown of those benefits:

Along with giving you the certainty that you are financially capable of purchasing a home, going through the pre-approval process lets you know how much home you are capable of purchasing. For first-time homebuyers, this can be extremely valuable information.
Pre-approval letters make you a stronger buyer. Sellers are more likely to accept offers from buyers who have been pre-approved because they know that these are serious offers coming from people who have proven capable of purchasing a home.
Because securing a pre-approval letter requires you to submit your verification documents, your mortgage planner will already have those items on file once you make an offer on a home. This should help speed up the process since fewer documents will need to be submitted.

In today’s competitive housing market, an increasing number of sellers and listing agents are requiring that home offers be accompanied by a mortgage pre-approval letter. Keep in mind that pre-approval letters are only good for a certain amount of time, so you should plan your home search accordingly. I would be happy to meet with you soon to plan the next steps toward your first home purchase. Call me, Keisha Tompkins today.