Buying a home can be either incredibly frustrating or incredibly smooth – it just depends on how much you know. This article’s purpose is to bridge the gap so ensure you have a smooth process. You’ll learn about all the people you’ll need to work with, what each of them do, how to contact each of them, and how to be prepared.
- Your Mortgage Loan Officer
Surprisingly, the home buying process doesn’t start with a real estate agent, it starts with a loan officer. In fact, if you go to a real estate agent, they’ll send you over to a loan officer anyways! The reason for this is that prior to a real estate agent investing time showing you homes, it’s important for them to know what you can legally afford. And to do that, you need a pre-approval letter from a mortgage loan officer.
According to mortgage crm provider Bntouch, securing your loan is the most stressful part about buying a home – to prevent this, you should have all of your necessary documents prepared.
Most mortgage banks will want to see 2 years of employment history, tax returns, a decent credit record and up to 3 months of bank statements.
Finding a local loan officer can be done with a simple google search. The best kinds are direct lenders as they avoid the fees charged by mortgage brokers. And yes, you can shop around for different interests rates.
- Your Real Estate Agent
Once you have your letter of pre-approval, your real estate agent will start showing you homes. If you find one that your interested in, they’ll submit an offer letter and if accepted, you’ll go back to working with your loan officer to turn your pre-approval into a genuine approval.
At this point, you’ll also need to start working with an attorney.
- Your Attorney
Most mortgage banks will offer legal services free of charge. This attorney will work on your mortgage bank’s best interest, however, in 99% of cases, whatever is in your mortgage bank’s best interest is also in your best interest. It’s still recommended that you seek your own legal council to avoid falling into the 1% of situations where there may be a conflict of interest.
Summary
To sum it up, most of your home buying process will actually revolve around a mortgage loan officer. The process is as follows:
- Get a pre-approval from a loan officer.
- Use a real estate agent to find and put an offer on a home.
- Work with your loan officer to turn your pre-approval into an approval.
- Work with a closing attorney to wrap up the deal.
Finding the Right People
Getting the right people to help you along the way is easier than you think. The best way is to find companies, research them online, and to see how other people’s experiences have been. Tell-Tale signs of trouble are negative reviews, poor digital presence, or just a lack of information. If a company or agent has a good reputation, it’s likely that they’ll do a good job for you.
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