- It Gives You A Firm Price Range– Getting pre-approved lets you know the maximum amount that you can spend. It will prevent you from falling in love with an apartment above your budget or seeing endless properties above what you can spend. It’s very hard to adjust your budget downward and adjust your expectations.
- It Gives You Credibility When Speaking to Real Estate Agents– Pre-approval is required when submitting offers. Showing you have pre-approval makes you a ready, willing and able buyer.
- Paperwork– In order to get pre-approved there is a lot of paperwork required such as tax returns, w2’s, paystubs and bank statements. A buyer is much better putting together the paperwork at their earliest convenience instead of being rushed to submit in order to present an offer.
- Credit Issues– Speaking with a mortgage professional will give you some time for you to get recommendations with credit problems or paying off debt. A credit report may also have unexpected errors and you will have time to fix these mistakes.
- Gifting– Mortgage bank statements are required for the past 60 days when getting pre-approval. If you are planning on getting a gift then lenders won’t see the gift if you received it over 60 days ago. In addition, some co-op’s do not allow gifts so if you plan way ahead then it can give you more apartment options down the road.
- Stress– Dealing with a pre-approval early on will allow you to avoid being in a time crunch later. Dealing with this early will help to save you stress.