There are a number of steps that should be taken BEFORE you look at homes. Taking the these steps will help make your home buying process go smoothly.

If you’re thinking about buying your first home, these five steps can help ensure you get the right house and the affordable financing that helps make home ownership a long-term success:

Luckily, the experts at MN Home Loan Partners can help you navigate through the maze! For the sake of this blog post, we will focus mainly on assets and how those play into your mortgage prequalification.

Interest rates have ticked up a little bit more over the last week, Freddie Mac’s mortgage market survey shows rates just over 5.25% on a 30 year fixed mortgage, those are the highest rates since august 2009. What’s awesome is that Minnesota Housing is standing by their word and they are still offering interest rates for first time home-buyers at 4.625 percent on first time home-buyer programs. Also, City Living for St Paul and Minneapolis as well as Dakota County Bond programs still show interest rates below 5% on 30 year fixed rate mortgages. So, it’s still a great time to buy.”

The MN Home Loan Partners is a unique group of lenders, each witha specific area of expertise, who has teamed up to provide an unbeatable level of service to both their clients and referral partners in Dakota County and Scott County, as well as the Twin Cities Metro area of Minnesota.

The value of a generic mortgage pre-approval = $25.00
The value of a Loan Officer who knows how to truly approve a loan = Priceless
This may sound cliché and I know it’s overused these days, but seriously, how is a first time buyer, or any home buyer in today’s market supposed to know that they can trust the person they’ve supplied their information to over the phone or internet who very rapidly, and simply states; “Congratulations, you’re pre-approved”. I’ve got news for you. You’re not.
If you have not supplied the following documentation, in addition to other documents that may be specific to your particular situation, you do not have a complete mortgage pre-approval and what you thought was a time to celebrate, could turn into a time of nail biting and rapidly graying hair from worry or sudden changes in your “pre-approval” status. So, as a homebuyer today, what should you expect to supply when you “apply” for a loan? Here’s a simple list that is nearly universally applicable: