By Carlos Perez
Dec 16, 2012
Q: What does it mean to be pre-approved for a loan?
A: To be pre-approved for a loan means that you’ve gone before a mortgage broker or a local or national bank and they have actually sat down with you, reviewed your income, reviewed your credit, your assets and you’ve actually been qualified to get a mortgage.
It’s a really important part of the process. It’s very hard to take someone out to see a property unless they’ve gone through that because right now financing is so important to make sure that it’s in line before we take someone out.
I have a list of people that I’ve worked with over the years that I have had confidence in and my clients have been getting mortgages with, so I usually give them that list. But then I encourage them to speak to either their local bank or the bank that they are in business with to at least get another option before making a final decision.
I think that clients today have such an opportunity to see all the homes that are available, they know everything through the different portals that are available, so it’s very important that they go through the process to get pre-approved before they start looking at homes because, at the end of the day, they’ll be sure that they’re not trying to get something that’s too much. That’s going to really hurt them down the road. They should really check their budget to make sure that they’ll be successful in their purchase process.
— Carlos Perez, RE/MAX Right Choice, 203-395-8086
