Pre-Qualification Is A Starting Point

Pre-qualification is the first step of the mortgage process. It is a cursory look at your financial situation. A Mortgage “pre-qualification” is a determination about whether or not the prospective applicant will most likely qualify for a loan within the lender’s current programs and standards. It is also a decision about the possible amount of the loan for which the prospective applicant might qualify for.

A pre-qualification is, often mistaken for pre-approval, which is the next and very necessary step in your home buying journey. Many home buyers believe that a pre-qualification is the same as a pre-approval. This is actually the furthest from the truth

Before jumping into the home buying market, well-informed shoppers already have an idea of how much home they can afford. Both mortgage preapproval and prequalification will give you an estimate, but only one may help you unlock the door to your new home.

Not quite ready just yet to move forward but want to get an idea of what you might qualify for?

Start with free soft credit pull mortgage Quick Pre-Qualification.

Confirm eligibility NOW for a mortgage loan without impacting your credit score.    QUICK-QUAL

We offer two different types of Pre-Approvals

• With a standard pre-approval, you would have submitted your loan application, your credit would be checked, typically your income and assets would be verified, and your file would have been “pre-approved” through desktop under underwriting. As you can imagine, this is a much stronger position to be in than a pre-qualification when making an offer on a house. The pre-approval would be conditional on obtaining any outstanding required documents, acceptable property, an appraisal and 3^rd party items. The pre-approval is usually good for 90 days.

• With our Upfront Underwriting Option, home buyers will have a full approval in hand with little to no financing contingencies after getting their application reviewed and approved by our underwriting team.

How Does This Work? The buyers fill out their online application and provide all their financials for our Underwriting team to review upfront. This helps to eliminate any potential roadblocks that may exist. Once the underwriter has reviewed and approved the application, the buyers will know their buying budget. In most cases once the buyers have been underwriter approved, the only outstanding items are property specific items. This is a BIG Advantage when making an offer and allows us to close quickly!

Get Home Buyer Ready,start today with a Mortgage Pre-Approval , APPLY NOW 

Once you have been pre-approved for a mortgage process you can begin uploading the required documents. The documents that are required differ from applicant to applicant based on loan type, down payment, assets etc., but don’t worry, we’ve made it easy for you.

When you log into your account (the same one that you created when filling out the pre-approval application) there will be a “CheckList”.  The Checklist is comprised of items we require from you for initial underwriting review, once you have uploaded all the items on the Checklist, then your application will be sent to underwriting for initial review.

After the initial review from underwriting there may or may not be additional required items needed from you added to the checklist.

Here are some of the most common required documents:

• Your Last 2 Years Tax Returns 
• Your Last 2 Years W2s 
• Your Last 2 Pay stubs or Award Letter if SSI
• Your Last 2 Months Bank Statements (Checking/Savings) 
• Your Last Retirement Statement 
• Copy of a Government Issued ID

There is no one size fits all when it comes to mortgages, there are many different types of mortgages. available. The easiest way to discern which loan program is best for your specific circumstances is by having a quick conversation Leo to find out more about your situation and goals. Call Leo today at 904-712-1500 or 203-525-3672 to learn more.

A mortgage point equals 1 percent of your total loan amount — for example, on a $100,000 loan, one point would be $1,000. One misconception about buying points is that if you pay 1% in points that your mortgage rate goes down buy 1 percentage  point, this is not the case. The exact amount that your interest rate is reduced depends on the specific the kind of loan, and the overall mortgage market. Sometimes you may receive a relatively large reduction in your interest rate for each point paid. Other times, the reduction in interest rate for each point paid may be smaller. It depends on the specific the kind of loan, and market conditions.

FYI: Points don’t have to be round numbers. Here are examples of costs for paying points on a $100,000 loan amount – you can pay 1.375 points ($1,375), 0.5 points ($500) or even 0.125 points ($125). The points are paid at closing and do increase your closing costs since the cost of the points is added to the closing costs. 

Is It Worth Paying Points? Every mortgage loan will have its own break even point for buying points. The longer you stay in the home beyond the break even point, the more you’ll save because the interest rate reduction continues generating monthly savings as long as you have the loan.

In conclusion, If you plan to stay in your home beyond the break even point and — if you don’t think you’ll refinance before the break even hits, paying points may be a good idea.

Contact Leo to learn more about paying points to lower your rate and if it make financial sense for you to pay points.

There really is no set amount that you need to save to put down on a house, but there are requirements based on the type of loan, credit scores, income and assets. One misconception is that you need 20% or more to purchase a home, this in not the case, in fact we have mortgage loan programs that will go up to 100% of the purchase price for qualified home buyers.

There are other costs involved in purchasing a home that many buyers don’t realize, these costs can vary from one home purchase to the other because some of these expenses can be negotiated with the seller to pay. In addition to the down payment, buyers also need to consider costs such as an appraisal cost, home inspection cost, prepaid interest, homeowners hazard insurance, prepaid property taxes, title/closing agent fees and other various costs.  When buying a house the buyers should expect to pay anywhere from 2 to 5 percent of the total home purchase price in closing costs. But remember, a good Real Estate Agent can negotiate with the sellers to pay some or most closing costs. 

Contact Leo today and get a no obligation mortgage closing costs breakdown based on your specific situation. This is a great way to get a more accurate idea of what you can expect to pay for closing costs. 

Every mortgage application is unique. A typical purchase mortgage is 30 days or less provided we don’t have any snags along the way  beyond our control. We have closed loans in 10 days or less. We move as fast as we can to get you cleared to close.

Note: Non traditional mortgages such as bank statement mortgages usually take longer. Contact Leo to find out more.

The short answer is YES it’s possible but it’s important to point out that one of the main items required to obtain a traditional mortgage for those self employed is a minimum of 2 full years business complete tax returns as well as 2 years of complete personal returns for that same period. The tax returns will be analyzed to determine your income which will be used to calculate the DTI (debt to income). While this is a main factor, there are still many other requirements but this is one of the most important requirements.

We do have alternative mortgage programs that are not as strict, our Bank Statement Program requires 12 or 24 months of bank statements. We use your bank statements to determine your allowable income per program guidelines.  

Contact Leo today to learn more about home mortgage options for those who are self employed.