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Meet with a Mortgage Broker First

 Meeting with a Mortgage Broker and obtaining a Pre-Approval Letter is a crucial step in getting started with the home-buying process.

Why do you need to be pre-approved before looking at homes?

  1. Neither you nor the Realtor want to waste time looking at properties that aren’t within your budget. You don’t want to assume you will be approved for a certain amount and find out later that your dream home is out of your budget.
  2. It is critical to have a pre-approval letter to negotiate effectively. A buyer who has a pre-approval has a distinct advantage over those buyers who decide to look at homes without a pre-approval.  If a seller receives multiple offers on their home, which is pretty common in a sellers market, they are going to select a purchase offer from the buyer who provides a pre-approval.
  3. You will eliminate frustration and stress by obtaining your pre-approval beforehand: giving you an upper-hand in today’s competitive market.

VERY IMPORTANT: What you are qualified to pay versus what you are comfortable paying for a monthly mortgage payment may be two different numbers. You can often be approved for a much larger monthly payment than what you will actually be comfortable paying each month- this is something to discuss with your lender or your Realtor. A good Realtor will respect those boundaries regardless of what the numbers say you can afford. Do not let anyone convince you to look “just a little bit higher”.

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