You may not be the only one who recognizes a good deal. When the right home comes along there may be multiple offers. A pre-qualification letter must accompany every offer, regardless if you are looking at bank owned foreclosures, short sales or traditional sales in the Tampa Bay area.
While pre-qualification offers leverage during pricing negotiations, a pre-approval letter goes a step further by verifying a lender has made a commitment to finance your home choice up to a certain price. If you wait until after you find the right home to obtain a letter, it may be too late. We strongly recommend that you obtain a pre-approval or pre-qualification letter in advance to ensure that all options are open to you.
Having a comprehensive letter from a recognizable lender will put you in a stronger negotiating position. Still hesitant to have a lender run your credit history? Worried the credit inquiry might drive down your score? Here are a few points to consider:
- If you already have a recent credit report, one of these lender can use that report without running it again. Reports are valid for 90 days and no additional pulls are usually required.
- The 3 credit reporting agencies have advised that if your credit is pulled by mortgage companies multiple time within the same 30 day period, it will only count as 1 pull. This is done to allow a client to be able to shop for a mortgage. The one pull should only effect the credit score by a couple of points.
- If you elect to run your score again, the lender will give you a copy of the report. You can use it wth any other lender. This is the very report will likely be used for the underwriting process. The borrower should review the report with the lender to explain the details and look for errors. If we spot a minor error we can remedy the situation in advance.
- It is important to not generate unnecessary inquiries as that indeed can drive down a credit score. However, the very reason one protects ones credit score is for this moment, when one is seeking to qualify for what is probably one’s largest single investment. Knowledge is power, and the first thing a borrower should learn is where they stand on their credit Score. “If you want to bake a cake, you need to break some eggs”.
For help selecting the best loan, the Lender Evaluation System and our Home Buying System, contact Doug & Dale Bohanon at Coldwell Banker (813) 979-4963.
