Why It’s Best to Get Preapproved Before You Drive Around Looking at Homes

One of the things that need to be on your to-do list before you go house shopping is to get pre-approval. Find out the reality of what you can get a loan for. Getting pre-approved before you look at houses for sale helps you to pick something in an accurate price range, avoids wasting your time and your realtor’s time, and avoids wasting the seller’s time.

Accurate Price Range

Driving around looking at homes is a lot of fun. Most of the time the things we tend to like when we are shopping are far beyond our range of affordability. We don’t know this until we look at the price tag or until it’s scanned by a customer service rep. Homs are the same way. We don’t know what they are worth until we do the legwork and find someone to get the actual price for us. Research suggests that we can’t go by the numbers listed online. We must get a more accurate number. The thing is, we don’t know what is a good or bad amount unless we are pre-approved first. That tells us how much we can get a loan for.

Avoid Wasting Your Time

You’ve found this home that is fabulous and fits all of your wish list items. You know for a fact you want to make an offer. Once you find out how much the house is, you’re ok with it, but then it’s time for you to get a loan. The loan comes through and you are not approved for enough to get the home. You also can’t afford to make the difference up in cash. You have officially wasted your time. Looking at a lot of homes takes time and then trying to narrow it down to a single home can be tough as well. Getting a preapproval can help because the bank can point you in the right direction of homes that really are in your price range.

Avoid Waiting Seller’s Time

You don’t know the seller and the seller doesn’t know you as a potential buyer. It’s important to maintain professionalism on both ends. Trying to get a seller to take a home off the market that you aren’t sure you can afford is not fair to the seller. You need to get preapproved before you enter into any kind of contract. Even if you have enough cash to place the house on hold if you don’t know how much loan money you can get for the home you are taking a shot in the dark. There is a big chance you and the seller will be let down. You should consider getting a preapproval and then getting with a realtor before you look for houses for sale Beavercreek oh.

Getting a pre-approval may seem like a major step, and it is if you’re not ready to buy yet. Once you get your money together and get your credit together it is not a bad idea to see how much you can get a home for. You will calculate what you can afford but a bank can at least let you know how much of a down payment to work towards. Pre-approvals are helpful because they keep you from going out of your price range, wasting your time, and wasting the buyer’s time.