mortgage question

[Semidevil]

If I was pre-qualified by my mortgage guy for a loan a few months back, and everything has been going ok; still getting same paycheck, credit cards have not gone up, (they have gone down), and monthly payments have not increased, does that pretty much mean that closing would be a breeze and there wont be any surprises.

no chance for being disqualified?

just want to make sure as I close on my house in a couple of weeks, and really nervous.

 

[acemcmac]

I'm in the same boat, but I was just prequalified this week and I'm about to start throwing money around. I think we'll both be fine. I cant imagine why they'd prequalify us and then not take us.

 

[olds]

Pre-qualified in not pre-approved.
That being said, they never would have started escrow if you didn't quailfy.

 

[FoBoT]

we checked back with our mortgage guy every month or so while we looked at houses
we took about 5 months to find the house we wanted, so we kept in touch with him to make sure we were still good to go on the $

 

[Semidevil]

Originally posted by: oldsmoboat
Pre-qualified in not pre-approved.
That being said, they never would have started escrow if you didn't quailfy.

so I guess that means I"m good to go right?

 

[SampSon]

Wait, how far along in the process are you? You're going to close on your house in a few weeks, but you're wondering about getting the loan now?

As long as the appraisal comes in, all conditions are met on the contract and your rate lock doesn't expire you should be good to go.

 

[Engineer]

Originally posted by: SampSon
Wait, how far along in the process are you? You're going to close on your house in a few weeks, but you're wondering about getting the loan now?

As long as the appraisal comes in, all conditions are met on the contract and your rate lock doesn't expire you should be good to go.

Is there a rate lock semidevil? Otherwise, your rate "could have" gone up vs what you were looking at a few months ago.

 

[iRONic]

You should have a good faith estimate of closing costs this close to the closing. If so, it's a done deal. If you don't have one your banker/broker are not doing their jobs.

 

[kranky]

I've read in a couple of places recently that in some cases the "good faith" estimates have been low by thousands of dollars. I don't know how you can protect yourself against that possibility other than making sure you have some extra funds available just in case.

Maybe the mortgage people here could elaborate.

 

[iRONic]

Originally posted by: kranky
I've read in a couple of places recently that in some cases the "good faith" estimates have been low by thousands of dollars. I don't know how you can protect yourself against that possibility other than making sure you have some extra funds available just in case.

Maybe the mortgage people here could elaborate.

The good faith estimte that is attached to the letter of commitment should not be "low by thousands of dollars."

 

[Vic]

Originally posted by: iRONic
You should have a good faith estimate of closing costs this close to the closing. If so, it's a done deal. If you don't have one your banker/broker are not doing their jobs.

This is inaccurate. By federal law (RESPA), the GFE (and Truth-in-Lending disclosure) is to be delivered to the borrower within 3 days of application. It is not a committment to lend. Receipt of the RESPA disclosures, including the GFE, does not constitute a "done deal," or mean that your loan will be closing rapidly. If a mortgage borrower has not received his RESPA disclosures, that does not means his banker/broker is "not doing this jobs," but that his banker/broker is not in compliance with federal lending laws.


Assuming that by "pre-qualify" the OP means that he has a conditional credit approval, an that his credit situation has not changed since application, then the only real hurdles left in his loan process are the property qualifications (appraisal, title, etc.), rate lock, and closing according to the terms of the purchase agreement.

 

[DrPizza]

There's a document that you should get from the bank. (maybe it's the good faith estimate)... whatever it was, we found out the hard way about a year and a half ago that the loan for which we were "approved" did not actually exist - or some details were missing - or something. We ended up not getting the home of our dreams as a result. The mortgage broker lied through his teeth about several aspects of closing. (We even pulled our children out of school, anticipating having moved to the other school district after the weekend.) We found out the night before we closed that we wouldn't be closing.

 

[Vic]

Originally posted by: iRONic

Originally posted by: kranky
I've read in a couple of places recently that in some cases the "good faith" estimates have been low by thousands of dollars. I don't know how you can protect yourself against that possibility other than making sure you have some extra funds available just in case.

Maybe the mortgage people here could elaborate.

The good faith estimte that is attached to the letter of commitment should not be "low by thousands of dollars."

The GFE is an estimate. It can say almost whatever the banker/broker wants it to. This is why it is important to choose an honest banker/broker, one you can trust, and not just the con artist who sends you the lowest estimate and then presents a big surprise at closing.

However, about the "extra funds available just in case" -- all funds to close must be documented and verified prior to release of final documents. So (if this is any relief) a dishonest broker should never be able to require you to come to closing with funds that you do not even have.
Typically, it is unforeseen items that cause a loan to be short to close. Usually prior liens against the property (like unpaid property taxes) or prior judgements against the borrower, things like that. Or perhaps the property appraisal was rejected by underwriting, etc.