First Time Home Buyers - The Application Process and Making it Easier

So you have decided you want to buy a home and you are going to use my step-by-step information to do so. Well, STOP! You first need to know the in's and out's to the application process. If you can walk into your lenders office pre-pared for the application it will make your life much simpler.

The first thing you need to do when you walk into a lenders office is to already know how much of a home you are looking for. This will just eliminate a lot of time that the lender will take to decide how much of a home you can really buy. You can find out more about this by reading my step-by-step guide, which I highly recommend doing before you buy a home.

Once you have figured out how much you can afford you will want to write that amount down and bring it to your lenders office. You will also want to bring a copy of your most current 30 day pay check stub, for most of us this means you will take two stubs in with you. They will most likely want to see your W2's and your 2 years worth of tax returns as well. What this will do is this allows your lender to be able to more accurately determine if you are in the right price range.

The next thing you will want to get is your most current 2 month bank statements and any retirement or investment statements you might have. The lender will need these for a few different reasons. 1st, they need to see that you have the money for a down payment (now some programs don't require a down payment so you will need to talk with them about which program is the best for you and your unique situation). 2ND, your lender will need the statements to show that you have at least 2 months worth of reserves. Reserves is a complex way of saying that you have 2 month worth of your mortgage payments available in case of an emergency. One BIG thing to note is that when you present bank statements you need to be able to document where any and all of your larger deposits came from. If you recently had a $5,000 cash deposit put into your bank account and you cannot prove with out a doubt where the cash came from then your lender will not be able to use this $5,000 for proof of down payment or even for proof of reserves, to the bank it doesn't exist.

Generally when you do any type of loan application the lender will also want a copy of your drivers license to be able to verify that you are truly the person who is applying for credit. Just remember to bring it with you, they may or may not need it.

Finally make sure that you have at least 2 years address history and employment history. What this means is that you have been living at your current residence for at least 2 years, and if not then you know your previous address and can give it to them with the dates you lived there. Like wise if you do not have a total of 2 years employment history then you ill need to know your previous and all the details of that employer as well.

The last thing that you will want to bring to them is a smile and lots of patients because the first meeting generally take a lot longer then the rest of them!