Its a very good idea to get pre-approved before looking for your new home. Just make sure that you purchase your property within 90-120 days from the pre-approval or it will be expired. Also if you want the best rate then you have to close within 30 days from the moment you receive your pre-approval.

Pre-approvals do 2 things for you. Ist they get you a held rate to protect you from increases in the mortgage rates. 2nd they let you know that the bank is behind you when you find your property and how much they are willing to give you. Both ways you benefit from the pre-approval so do it today.

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Hello! just wondering if anyone would have a ballpark of how much credit unions / banks typically give for 1st time home buyers? i have good credit. the house i want is going for *asking price* 74,000. obviously i am going to offer less, but worst case scenario -- do you think the bank would lend out such a high amount to a first time buyer? just wondering i have no experience in any of this ... sooo, kinda curious if i should be looking at lower priced houses ;) good stuff thanks! :) i have my car paid off, bought in cash. no credit cards to pay off. only a student loan... i guess we'll see what happens :)

You really should ask a mortgage lender for the current ratios and their requirements. However, a ballpark would be to get a good estimate of how much you make MONTHLY. Then a good estimate of the total amount of debt payments (credit cards, car loan, student loans, personal loans, etc.) MONTHLY. Do not count rent, utilities, phones, only money you owe. Subtract your debt from your income. Let's say you make $1,500 and the debt ratio is 35% in your area, then you wold be allowed $525 including your mortgage. If you already owe $300 in car and credit card payments, then you have $225 left for a mortgage which is about a $37,000 house at 6% over 30 years. Also, there is a maximum payment banks like to see for a mortgage, some where around 25% of your monthly so if you had no debt, the most they would let you have in the above situation is $375 which is a %62,000 house.

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I heard that every time someone runs a credit check on you, it affects your credit rating (in a bad way). since different banks offer different mortgage rates, and that some banks are tougher to get a loan than others (due to meeting stricter company criterias), how can the potential borrower shop around for the lowest rate that he or she can definitely qualify for if he or she can't go get pre-approved from different banks? if the borrower decides to do so, when its time to actually apply for the loan, the bank can reject your application because they think either you have tried to apply from different banks and got rejected already, or that you have multiple loans taken out already since the credit report does not indicate the purpose of past credit checks. therefore, is it a better idea to get pre-approved by one bank and use the same bank when its time to apply for the mortgage loan? please correct me if i have mentioned anything that is untrue. thank you all in advance.

Whoa ok, this is not as complicated as your assuming! 1. You most likely will HAVE to get pre-approved for a seller to take your offer on a house seriously. 2. Do go and get pre-aproved a few places to see where you will be able to get the best deal (rate.) The key is to do this all within a few days so that it only affects your score once and not several times if you were to drag it out. (This change to how scores are calculated was done b/c it is reasonable for people to shop around for the bext rate.) 3. And they WILL know the reason for your inquiries even if you don't take out the loan ;) 4. Once you find a lender you are confortable with then you will know who to go back to once you do put an offer on a house and it is accepted and you need to go back and finalize the funding. Hope this helps, I know it's daunting, but it's so worth it in the end!

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I recently received a pre-approved application for a merrick bank card, so i decided to apply for the card just to help in making my credit stronger and my score higher.. when youdo a online application with them do you normally get a answer from them right away or does it take time to process the application? is it a credit card for people with bad, fair or good credit? i hate to be denied and it affect my credit score....

Merrick Bank card is for those, establishing their credit. When you do a online, you usually get a answer right away. I will say this, if your looking for credit cards, and do not want it to affect your scores, apply for more than one ... at the same time. That way when they check it looks like one. Not like a string of applications... searching, wanting.

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A friend of mine advised me to leave the amount i was pre-approved for blank on the certificate. he said it acts as a bargaining tool when it comes time to making an offer and that i can always get another certificate from the bank with just my offer amount printed on it. he said this way, no one else has to know what i was actually approved for, thus they cannot reject my offer if i low-ball the bid. on one hand, it sounds like a good idea, but convoluted on the other.

No, that doesn't make any sense. When we bought our house the agent had to see that we were pre-approved for enough to cover the loan we would need. He wasn't going to waste his time submitting a bid for a house we couldn't afford. The seller never saw the pre-approval, they just knew that we were pre-approved for enough to cover our offer, so it is not a bargaining chip at all.

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I would like to get pre-approved for a loan so that i can pinpoint what i can afford. i have an idea, but i want to be sure. i just want a simple, 1 or 2 bedroom first time home. i've been renting for 7 years and i just want to settle down. is going to an actual bank the best like wells fargo, or are places like citi financial or quicken loans any good. any idea would be helpful.

Use the internet before going into a bank. Try Bankrate.com for a good overview of what's being offered in your area. I've been buying and selling houses for 15 years, I've never gotten a great mortgage deal from big money center banks like Citi and Wells Fargo. I have gotten good deals from smaller regional banks. For some reason, credit unions have always been very flexible on both terms and rates.

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My bank is offering me a pre-approved loc; the rate is 2% above prime (6% i think). the rate will always stay the same. i know i will have to pay it back, similar to a loan. i have a balance on my credit cards at this time. is it a good idea?

If you can switch from high credit card interest to lower rates on a line of credit, it could work to your advantage. Just make sure you keep up with monthly payments. A line of credit gives you a miximum amount of available credit which is nice to know you have in emergencies. Never go close to that maximum line! Try to stay well below it.

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My boyfriend and i will both be 21 soon. we have been together for 3 years, and for some time now we have been discussing buying a home. we looked for about a year at different rents, but they're all so expensive! my boyfriends mom is a real estate agent and she figured out some numbers for us, and we'd be paying about the same each month for a mortgage/tax payment as we would be paying monthly for rent. i live in connecticut and things here are pretty expensive, but my boyfriend recently finished school and just landed an amazing job. we're going to spend the next 3 months looking around (news paper real estate ads, etc) to get a general idea of what we can get for how much money. after hes been at this new job for 3+months, we're going to go to the bank and see what we can get pre-approved for. i am almost finished with college and i've got a great steady job that i've had for the past 4 years. (more details coming) i’ve been on a few websites but they don’t seem at all professional. other websites i’ve looked at to find homes for sale in our state (connecticut) ask us to sign up and pay a fee in order to view listings. i saw a house for sale some time ago that i really liked but when i called the number that was with the listing, it said that the house was sold about a year ago and that the website just was not updated. i’m looking for a good, legitimate, website to look for homes for sale in my area.

Log on to www.ColdwellBanker.com, and input the location info. You will have the ability to narrow the search based on factors like price, no. of rooms, distance from specific locations, etc. They will also have links to info on area demographics , schools and cultural info. Let me know if I can help!

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A) my mortgage company offered to do the obama modification program. b) they filled out an app and said i was pre-approved c) the guidelines state that until i get the final approval foreclosure proceedings stop. i qualify for all the guidelines - income, home value depreciating (for example the mortgage is higher than the value so it's almost like i'm doing them a favor to stay otherwise they wouldn't approve it) d) they never sent me paperwork about it even though i have recorded phone conversations telling me they would, telling me i was pre-approved, recorded conversations of them taking my app and everything. e) they never told me my new payment amount, just that i should wait for my info to be underwritten f) next thing i know i get a letter from an investor saying since my home is in foreclosure would i like to speak to him about it g) i call them up saying wtf, am i really in foreclosure, and the 3rd person i speak to finally admits that i am and 10 days later sends me the notice. supposedly i missed the first modification payment which they never informed me of and which is almost 1,000 higher than my current payment which doesn't make sense. h) they are ignoring all my attempts to work something out. they totally mislead me, lied to me and i filed a complaint with the treasury they're not giving me a copy of the lender's response but one of the lady's on the phone secretly told me that part of their response states that they have no documentations on their end to dispute my claims - ex. they didn't save the recorded calls they say are recorded. they have no paper showing me that i had any payment due - i had no idea about it until they put me in foreclosure and verbally told me on the phone i had missed an imaginary payment. my sale date was supposed to be 2 weeks ago, i postponed it for a few weeks more. i wouldn't mind going to the same exact terms before this hoopla started. now i owe tens of thousands to catch up in the course of 8 months. my 30 year fixed loan was fixed at the time i signed it and without me seeing any paperwork or agreeing to anything they have 'modified" it to $900 more/month. it is such a joke i am losing sleep getting very ill over all this. they are a very large bank so i don't know if it'll be a lost cause fighting them. i feel taken advantage of, my perfect credit now has a foreclosure on it, all my equity is going away, i had remodeled the whole place brand new condition last year. i am so upset i can't believe this is happening it's like a bad dream. i wish i never watched those commercials obama was on non-stop saying to apply for a modification to lower your payments. i believed in it, got suckered in and now they are taking my house away through shady dealings i have all on tape from my conversations. i can only afford $5,000 in legal fees at the most - do you think any lawyer would give any good result and put time in for that much? do you think i even have a case? i don't want to roll over and give up if i have a chance. i can't believe this is happening and i think the treasury department are bought off and in the pockets of this bank from my dealings with them over the past several months (i am convinced of this).

Hello there, I am somewhat confused. Did you stop making your regular monthly payments? If so, did you stop before or after you talked with the bank about a mortgage modification? Were you already delinquent on the monthly payments before you talked with the bank about a mortgage modification? I suggest you contact a local attorney, preferably one who has some experience with mortgage modifications. Have the answers to my questions available. I would suspect the lawyer will want that Information. If you have a regular family attorney, go see him/her. If the attorney does not feel competent to handle a mortgage modification case, he/she will refer you to another attorney working in that area of law. If you do not have a family attorney and do not know an attorney working in the area of mortgage modifications, contact your county bar association and ask them to refer you to an appropriate attorney. Most likely the bar association will give you a few names that you can chose between. Time is of the essence in this matter and you should contact an attorney as soon as possible. I cannot speak to what attorneys in your county will charge. However, most will provide some reasonable payment arrangements. Most will have minimal or no charge to listen to your problem and tell you if they feel you have a course of action. If you cannot find an attorney to deal with the mortgage modification matter quickly, contact a bankruptcy attorney. They may be able to put together a quick bankruptcy filing to put a hold on the mortgage foreclosure and then find a way to resolve the matter for you. Later,

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We made an offer on a bank owned (foreclosed) house in california three days ago and offered 17.5% below the asking price, they told us they would get back to us in 48 hours..does anyone have any idea how long we would normally have to wait before we hear back from the bank and is 17.5% below asking too low? the comps on the last couple of homes sold in the area have been about 15% above what we offered but they were not foreclosures and the last home sold was in july. we are first time homebuyers with credit scores in the low 800's and we will be putting 10% down and gave a deposit of $4,000 with the offer and we have been pre-approved by our lender and we just got pre-qualified through the bank that owns the house since this is what our agent told us is required. as of this morning, there are no other offers on the house, it was on the market for a little over a 100 days for a short sale but when it was foreclosed upon, they relisted it on the mls on 9/10/08. also, would all the stuff that happened with the banking industry (fannie mae, mac, lehman, merril lynch, etc.) actually give us a better chance at getting the house at our offer price or does this type of activity make it more difficult or does it make any difference at all. thanks! .

You are in great shape. Dont fret if you dont hear in 48 hours, the banks are really backed up. Also, the average is 20% below asking and the house was on for 100 days... you're good. Make sure you get a great rate too.. you are perfect buyers. Good luck!!

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my son andi talked and agreed that it would be a good idea for him to accept a couple of the pre approved credit card offers he had received in the mail to start building him some credit. the deal was i would keep the cards use them for things we needed and i would make the payments since i had much more money coming in at the time. everything was going great i was even able to pay off the entire monthly balance sometimes but always payed almost half of the balance. i quickly built his credit score up to almost 700 in one year. well my luck took a turn for the worse i lost 1,600 of my monthly income within 6 months since over half my income was coming ss survivors benifits from when thier father passed away. i still had one check coming in plus my income from my job which was not much. i now had to start making the minimum payments on the cards after maxing them out due to lost income and no health insurance. i spoke with my son and we agreed it would be best to take a low interest loan from our bank to pay the cards off because just making the minimum payment the balance would never come down so he did and the cards were paid off. i still had the cards in my possesion which was suppose to have been cut up unfortunately i did not do that right away. well more bad luck came my way i developed some very serious health problems which interfered with my work and i started missing work which led to eventually not being able to work at all and now i am in the process of appealing a disability claim. i started to use the cards again for things we needed to get by and this was without the permission of my son because i assumed i could keep up the minimum payments. well all it took was one missed payment on the cards and things just spiraled out of control with all the charges which resulted in me not being able to make the payments at all. i was keeping this to myself desperately trying to find a way to work this out. i eventualy found out that credit card companys will not negotiate until the account is 90 days past due which i am in the process of doing now. my son just recently found out about it and went through the roof which he had every right to i assured him i am doing everything in my power to negotiate a settlement payment. i made an offer in writing to the companys which we are still waiting to hear from. one thing about my son he has a very bad temper and can get violent he is 20 yrs old and he got the cards over two years ago. he starts arguments about the matter and sometimes threatens to sue me for credit card fraud...can he?. when ever i used the cards i always signed my name never his, i am in no way justifying my actions but can he sue me for fraud?.

"without the permission of my son" = Fraud There's no way around that.