You have made the decision to buy a house, it’s time to ACT! Let’s go look at houses! Whoa! Let’s put the snow hook in and stop this runaway team before we get all tangled up.
Look at the reasons to talk to a lender before looking at a home.
- You will receive a good faith estimate. This is a piece of paper that itemizes all your costs of purchasing the home. It also states your interest rate and the monthly payment. Most lenders will be willing to give you several good faith estimates based on different loan amounts and different types of loans.
- You will get a head start on paperwork. Your lender will always need some extra documents that will require some time to track down. You will need bank recent account statements. You may need tax forms. A letter from your employer will be required stating that you actually work where you said you did. Many times these documents take some time to track down and you can get them done early.
- Your offer to purchase will be stronger. When you write your offer on your home the amount that you offer is only part of the equation. The seller wants assurance that you can actually complete the purchase. If you have pre-qualified, the lender will write a 90% letter to include with your offer that will make the seller more comfortable even if your offered price is lower than the asking price.
- You won’t waste time and effort. If you fall in love with a home only to find that you can’t qualify to purchase it you will be disappointed. Not only that, all the other homes you look at will seem dingy and small compared to the one you can’t have. Save yourself the drama, put first things first.
Wasilla and Palmer have many qualified lenders that can help smooth out the bumps in the purchase process. If you are buying a home in the Valley, I recommend using a valley lender. There are many intricacies of valley real estate that they will know. An out of state lender, or even an Anchorage lender may cause your loan to take longer to close just because they are not as familiar with the Mat-Su Valley.
