When you make the decision to buy a home, searching isn’t the first thing you need to do.
There is no error in the statement you just read. Buying a house, a home of your own, is as much an emotional as a financial decision and changes the intuitive sequence of steps that must be taken to get the keys. Long before you start looking for a home or are interested in the area where you want to live, you should carefully examine your accounts to determine two things: how much you can pay for it and what mortgage you will take out.
This will make the difference between dreaming with your eyes open or suffering constant nightmares and disappointments.
Looking for a new house. Eva Katalin (Getty Images)
So what should you do?
Find out what house you can buy within your budget. Rocket Mortgage®, the largest mortgage company in the United States, can match you with the loan that best suits your situation and provides online tools to help you make initial calculations about the price of the home you could purchase , and the liquidity you will have. need.
Remember that the purchase price of the house is the most important, but not the only, cost factor. A buyer’s budget should include property taxes, home insurance, maintenance or repair costs, and HOA dues if it is a condo, co-op, or part of a neighborhood HOA.
HOA – Homeowners Association. Community of homeowners, the English acronym Andrey Popov (Getty Images/iStockphoto)
When checking the numbers, it is important that you pay particular attention to your creditworthiness, as this, in addition to the initial payment of the house price, plays a crucial role in obtaining the loan and its conditions.
On this last point, it is important to clarify that the effort you have to make does not have to be gigantic or lengthy. The down payment does not have to be up to 20% of the home price. Rocket Mortgage offers conventional mortgages with a minimum down payment of 3% of the home price, FHA mortgages that only require you to contribute 3.5% of that price, and VA loans that require no down payment but are only available to military members. Qualified current employees, veterans, or eligible widows and widowers of members of the Armed Forces and National Guard.
To make the purchase easier and save the time needed to save, Rocket Mortgage is expanding its mortgage offering to include the ONE+ offering, which is crucial in this initial phase. With this help, this lender contributes 2% of the price, meaning the buyer only has to contribute 1% to qualify for a conventional mortgage. Additionally, the price of private mortgage insurance added to this type of loan (PMI) is waived if the down payment is below 20%. This is a big savings because in other circumstances this insurance, which protects the lender, incurs significant additional monthly costs.
With the key numbers already taken care of, all that’s left to do is contact a real estate agent to guide you through the properties that fit your budget. Don’t forget to bring an important document for making an offer on real estate: a prequalification letter from a lender.
This letter is a rough estimate of the amount the lender would offer for a mortgage after a basic review of your accounts and may be requested by some real estate agents to work with. It is a document that strengthens your offer to a seller because it shows that you have the ability to secure financing for the purchase.
After thoroughly reviewing additional information, the lender may issue you a pre-approval letter. Rocket Mortgage also offers Verified Approval Letters (VAL), which add more weight to an offer to purchase because they contain information that has been verified against documentation. This is very valuable in a price war for the property and speeds up the processing of the mortgage.
An advisor sits down with a married couple and shows her clients how to read financial reports and monthly statements, pay taxes and save money for the future.RichVintage (Getty Images/iStockphoto)
Buying a home is not a quick process and there can be bumps along the way. The help of real estate agents and the leader in the mortgage sector, who is always on the other end of the line, facilitates the process at all stages, speeds up the path to the dream of receiving the keys and provides emotional peace to enjoy a long-awaited home.
Learn more at rocketmortgage.com!
Rocket Mortgage, LLC; NMLS #3030; www.NMLSConsumerAccess.org. Fair Housing Lender. Licensed in 50 states. For more information, visit RocketMortgage.com
Participation in the Verified Approval Program is based on a complete analysis of your credit, income, employment status, debts, property, insurance, appraisal, and a satisfactory report or title search by Subscriber. If new information becomes available that materially changes the underwriting decision and results in the rejection of your loan application, if the loan cannot be completed for a reason beyond Rocket Mortgage’s control, or if you no longer wish to continue with the loan, your Participation in the program is suspended. If your eligibility for the program does not change and your mortgage loan does not expire, you will receive $1,000. This offer does not apply to new purchase loans submitted to Rocket Mortgage through a mortgage broker. Additional conditions or exclusions may apply.