Mortgage Loan Process

The purchase of your new home should first start with understanding your current financial circumstances. The pre-qualification process is the manner in which you will determine whether you will qualify for a loan and how much you can borrow. The pre-qualification takes place with a loan officer, where you will be asked general questions about your income, employment, assets, credit and other personal information in order to determine your current purchasing ability. The loan officer will also review loan programs and options that are available to you. It is our experience that a situation rarely arises that your loan officer has not encountered in the past. Do not hesitate to discuss any questions you have regarding your assets, income or credit.

Once you have obtained pre-qualification and have selected your new home, you will be asked to meet with the loan officer and provide necessary documentation to complete a loan application, which details your overall financial history, including assets, income, credit and personal information. Please note that the only expense that you will be asked to pay for upfront is the credit report fee. The amount of documentation and information required for a mortgage can seem overwhelming. Please remember a mortgage is the largest financial burden, over the longest period of time, which an average person will undertake. This increases the lender’s risk for loaning this money and, in turn, determines the amount of documentation required by you, the borrower. You may, however, streamline the application process by collecting as much of the needed information as you can before the appointment.

Immediately after the loan application process is completed, the lender will begin the processing of the loan for lender approval. All information and necessary documentation obtained from the loan application meeting will be presented as a package to the lender for approval. The lender will then notify the loan officer that the buyer has been approved.

Underwriting is the process in which the lender verifies and reviews all aspects of the purchase being made. The underwriter will assess whether the borrower’s financial circumstances fall within their guidelines of approval, will review the property to be purchased and confirm the terms of the purchase agreement are in line with their expectations. Because building a home takes time, the lender will continue the final underwriting of the loan about 30 days prior to the anticipated closing date. It is not unusual for the underwriter to request additional information and documentation from the borrower to complete the final underwriting process. If any of the documents requested have not been returned to the lender in a timely manner, the process may be delayed.

The only thing anyone knows for certain about interest rates is that they will change. Lenders provide the opportunity to secure the interest rate during the process up to 30-60 days before your closing. Only you can make the decision to lock the interest rate on your loan. We recognize that timing is vitally important in planning your move and locking in your loan. Once construction reaches a point at which weather and other factors are unlikely to affect the completion of your home, we can begin to offer an estimated closing date. Therefore, it is your responsibility to contact your loan officer to determine the interest rate and lock in your loan.

Reviewing and executing home buying and lender documentation, at the title company on the day you close, may seem to be one of the most daunting experiences of the home buying process. Since the closing of your new home represents the final step to ownership, we will help make the experience a pleasurable one. Our Customer Service Representatives will coordinate a firm closing date and time and will inform you of the necessary documentation you must bring with you in order to simplify the process. After your appointment, the title company will coordinate the transaction with your lender and the title is then transferred to you, the buyer. Once this final step is taken, the title company will inform us that the home belongs to you the homebuyer and you are given the keys to your new View Home!