Friday, October 11, 2013

My Home Buyer is Pre-Qualified…So What!

Two big changes have happened since the real estate bust.  Three out of ten Americans don’t qualify for a mortgage.  And lenders are not giving out many Pre-Approval letters.

It has been traditional for buyers of homes to get themselves “Pre-Qualified” when they are putting an offer in to purchase a home and adding a mortgage contingency clause.  "Pre-Qualified" letters are relatively easy to get from mortgage lenders.  They don’t mean much; just that the lender has run the numbers the potential borrower has given to him and, without verifying the data, calculated how large a mortgage the borrower should be able to get. 

On the other hand, I ask for a potential buyer to present a “Pre-Approval" letter.   This indicates his lender has checked out all the  income, assets and other data the borrower has given to him and has pre-approved the loan.  It gives my seller  a comfortable feeling that, if he accepts an offer with a Mortgage Contingency Clause and the buyer  provides a Pre-Approval letter, then the buyer should be able to get a mortgage and buy the home.
Times have changed!  Here are two good articles from FloridaRealtors.org.  One is about credit scores and qualifying for a mortgage and the other about the slow death of Pre-Approval letters:

Getting a Mortgage 

  http://bit.ly/18Yajtj

Getting a Pre-Approval Letter 

http://bit.ly/1aiWa8v

 

No comments: