Realtor Magazine today had an interesting article about something that is confusing for buyers and sellers. Confusing prequalification with preapproval can mean disappointment for both a home seller and a buyer.
It’s smart for buyers to become preapproved by their lender – not just prequalified.
To obtain a bona fide preapproval, you must submit a loan application with the necessary documentation and fee. After the lender verifies and analyzes the application, it will notify you -the applicant- of how much money you can afford to borrow. This usually means a few hours work for both buyer and lender. But armed with that information, the buyer can confidently go home shopping.
Prequalifications are simply an estimate of what a buyer can afford. A buyer who assumes that this estimate is accurate and chooses a home based on the information may, in fact, be denied a loan when he actually applies, a situation that wastes his time and can put a seller in an a bad position if they’ve already turned away a qualified buyer. And, of course it wastes the real estate practitioner’s time as well.
There are terrific buys out there right now. Anyone who has been thinking about purchasing a property should do so right now. Check out the following properties:2625 Spring Oaks in Santa Rosa, 164 Cordoba Way, Windsor, both are great homes in super neighborhoods.
Mirjam de Rijk