- Prequalification – During the prequalification process we will take a number of factors into consideration in order to calculate what you qualify for. These factors are: credit score and the monthly obligations that are on your credit report versus your income, this is called a debt to income ratio. In order to qualify, your ratios will need to fall within a certain range depending on your loan program. We will request your 2 most recent years tax returns, 2 most recent years W2s, 2 most recent months bank statements, most recent 30 days paystubs, Drivers Licenses, and additional documents depending on your unique situation. Once we have calculated your debt to income ratio and have received these requested documents we will be able to tell you what amount you qualify for. And then the fun part happens, you get to start shopping for a home!
- Go under contract – Once you find a home that you love with your realtor and get your offer accepted, you will get a contract on the home that includes the details that you and the seller have agreed upon including purchase price, loan amount, earnest money and option period amounts, who is paying for title policy, contact information for both parties real estate agents, option period dates, closing date, and lots of other pertinent information regarding your transaction. Your real estate agent will provide us a copy of the contract and we will begin setting up your loan. Here is what that process entails:
- Signing disclosures – we will get you a set of documents called your disclosures that you will sign before we can move forward with your loan.
- Order appraisal – you will go online and pay an appraisal fee and then we will order an appraisal on the property you are purchasing. An appraisal is performed to ensure that the value of the home is at least the amount of the purchase price.
- Send loan to processing – we will send your loan on to our processing team who will comb through the documents that we have on hand for you as well as your loan application to make sure that we have your loan in great shape before we send it off to underwriting. Your processor may reach out to you for additional documentation during this time. Once the processor has everything they believe they will need to get an initial underwriting approval they will send the loan to the underwriters or their review.
- Send loan to Underwriting – during underwriting, the underwriters will do an even more in depth review of your entire loan package to make sure that your income, assets, liabilities, etc. all support the loan that you will be taking out. Often the underwriters will find things they require additional documentation on (these are called underwriting conditions), or things that they would like an explanation on. When they do, your processor will reach out to you to gather their requested documentation. An example of what they may ask for is: an explanation for a large deposit on your bank statement, a missing schedule to a tax return, an explanation for a credit inquiry, etc. Once they are done reviewing your file they will “conditionally approve” your loan which means that if you provide the documents that they have requested they plan to fully approve your loan.
- Final underwriting – during final underwriting your processor sends up the underwriting conditions that you have provided along with final employment verifications, a copy of the appraisal, and several other documents that complete the loan package. When your loan comes out of final underwriting it will be “clear to close” if all of the necessary items have been provided.
- Closing – after your loan is clear to close you will schedule a time to close at your title company. At closing, you will sign lots of documentation regarding your home loan and the purchase of your new property. Once you are done signing, we will send the funds to the title company to fund your loan. At this point, you are a new home owner!