What You Need To Know
One of the first steps in your homebuyers journey is getting pre-approved. To understand why it’s such an important step, you need to understand what pre-approval is and what it does for you. In a pre-approval, the lender tells you what types of loans you may be eligible to take out, how much you may be approved to borrow, and what your rate could be.
Basically, pre-approval gives you critical information about the homebuying process. It will help you understand your options and what you may be able to borrow.
How does it work?
As part of the pre-approval process, a lender will look at your finances to determine what they would be willing to loan you. From there, your lender will give you a pre-approval letter to help you understand how much money you can borrow. That can make it easier when you set out to search for homes because you will know your overall numbers. With higher mortgage rates impacting affordability for many buyers today, a solid understanding of your numbers is even more important.
Pre-Approval Helps Show You’re a Serious Buyer
Another added benefit is pre-approval can help a seller feel more confident in your offer because it shows you are serious about buying their house. From the seller’s perspective, a pre-approval letter from a reputable local lender often can make the difference between accepting and rejecting an offer.
This goes to show, even though you may not face the intense bidding wars you saw if you tried to buy during the pandemic, pre-approval is still an important part of making a strong offer. In fact, it may be the most important part of making an offer.
Bottom Line
Getting pre-approved is an important first step towards buying a home. It lets you know what you can borrow and shows sellers you are serious about purchasing their home.