Hi everyone. Aleem here with The MortgageSpecialist.com. In today’s Mortgage Minutes we’re going to answer a question I’ve been fielding a lot lately.
Should I get pre approved first? Or should I go shopping first? Here’s a scenario to lay out for you. If you were to go shopping for a house and fall in love with a place that costs $500,000.00, you make an offer and it gets accepted. And then you go to your bank and your bank says, “Sory you actually only qualify for $400,000.00.”
Now your hearts broken, the family is disappointed, and you don’t get the house that you’ve fallen in love with. Not to mention, the seller’s going to be disappointed as well.
So, not a great situation for anybody, and definitely not a situation you want to put yourself in. So a 100 percent yes, you should get pre-approved first. In fact many realtors will insist you get pre approved first, because they too don’t want to waste their time as well showing you homes that may be out of your qualifying budget.
So, if you are looking to buy a home, you ABSOLUTELY must get pre approved first to find out how much you can even shop for.
Now there is a succinct distinction between a pre-approval, and being pre-qualified. We covered the differences in another episode, which you may want to check out. “how I helped a partner save his client’s purchase”
So here are the steps you should follow; you should get pre approved first. Then once you know how much you can go shopping for, you tell your realtor, your realtor takes you shopping for homes within your qualifying budget. You find one you like and you make an offer on that home.
If it’s accepted, then typically you have a subject removal time line of 5 7 or 10 business days. Then you come back to me. We do the final approval. Important to for you to know that a pre-approval is not the same as an “Approval” There’s still some work to do.
So, you get pre approved. You go shopping. You get an accepted offer, then you get fully approved, and then you buy your home. OK? So, that’s the simple scenario as to how you buy a home. So, for all of you first time home buyers out there, or even people who are buying for the 10th time. Important for everyone to get pre-approved, or more importantly pre-qualified, especially with the rule changes that have taken into effect over the last several months.
So, if you have any questions, or if you would like to get pre qualified, give me a call, it’s Aleem Peermohamed from themortgagespecialist.com.