How Prequalification Helps with Buying Your First Home

You've spent many months visiting models at new housing developments, visiting open houses, and arranging appointments to see existing properties for sale. You and your spouse have finally found the house of your dreams. It's in a perfect location, has enough square footage and bedrooms for your family, and boasts a host of excellent features like a gourmet kitchen and spa tubs. You apply for a mortgage to buy your first home and are denied. The lender says your down payment and income do not put you anywhere close to affording what you want.

You could have spared yourself the embarrassment and wasted time by undergoing prequalification before buying your first home. Going home-shopping without this prerequisite, as you've discovered, is like taking a long taxi ride and realizing you left your wallet at home. The process essentially looks at your income and expenses to determine how much home you can afford.

After you have been prequalified, you can use this knowledge to look for properties that are within your price range. Once you make an offer, the lender then examines your finances in detail before issuing you the mortgage. After prequalification, this examination is often just a formality because the lender already knows the state of your finances in advance.

To make the process go more quickly and efficiently, do what you can to clean up your finances before you apply. Pay off as many bills as possible to reduce your outstanding balances. You'll be able to afford more house if you have fewer monthly obligations.

Why don't you contactus today to find out more about obtaining a mortgage or getting prequalified?

Do You Qualify For The New Back To Work Lending Program?

With the new back to work lending program, lenders are all set and ready to help people who have gone through an adverse economic event. If this describes you, then there is no reason why you should miss out on this program. This HUD mortgage plan is aimed at giving you a new start if you have recently recovered from an economic downturn. In order to qualify you will need to prove that the economic event was caused by events that were not in your control. In addition you will need to show that the event reduced your household income by twenty percent or more for as long as a six month period. The FHA understands that sometimes life happens and you can’t do much about it.

If you have suffered foreclosure, pre-foreclosure, bankruptcy (either chapters 13 or 7), needed a loan modification or deed-in-lieu or forbearance, then you are a prime candidate for these loans. After you have documented your loss of income satisfactorily, your credit history will pretty much be forgiven and you can borrow money to buy your family a home.


One of the things to note, to the FHA’s credit, is that the loans are written with regular FHA standards. In fact you can get your new home with just a 3.5 percent down payment. The interest rates have also not been inflated but are the same as those of other FHA products. This has all been set up like that to ensure that the borrowers are not in any way penalized for an event that they could not have done anything about. Of note is that not all lenders are offering the back to work loan. Only specific ones have signed up with the FHA to provide this product.

In order to get approval with the new back to work lending program you will also be required to attend an hour of housing counseling or home ownership education or both. If you do not go through this counseling your loan will be denied. It is important that you have all of your documentation well put together and make sure that every requirement outlined by the FHA has been met. It is in your best interest to find an underwriter who is both confident that you can repay the loan and also one who is confident with your documentation.

With this loan you will be well on your way to getting your life back to the place it was before you suffered the economic event. We all understand how important it is to own a home. It is indeed a landmark event in the life of any person. Don’t let anything stop you from owning your dream home. Just get your documentation together, attend housing counseling and speak to a lender near you.

Want a Loan from Back To Work Mortgage Lenders? Get HUD Counseling First

Now that the FHA has a loan product to serve those who have been through a negative economic event it is important that you find out what the requirements are to qualify for the said loan. Loss of income, employment or both is what has been termed as an economic event. However, it needs to have reduced the income of the borrower’s household by at least twenty percent for more than 6 months. Back to work mortgage lenders have received instruction not to approve any loans unless the borrower has been through housing counseling.

If you are to get approval for a back to work home loan you need to have sat through a homeownership counseling and education class. Each borrower hoping to get an approval will need to have sat with a HUD approved counselor and had an hour of one-on-one counseling. This counseling is meant to review and analyze why the economic event occurred and to also find out what steps have been taken by the borrower to overcome the event. In addition, the counselor will also want to know what measures have been put in place to ensure that a reoccurrence is unlikely.


FHA back to work program lender by 1stalliancelendingllc

The counseling must be carried out by a housing counseling agency approved by HUD, or by intermediaries and sub-grantees that have been approved to do so. Finance agencies that work with state housing are also allowed to offer housing counseling. The counseling can take place online, by telephone or even via the internet, so long as HUD has approved of the method. It is also a requirement that the housing counseling session take place between 1 month and 6 months before the loan is applied for.

The borrower will need to provide the back to work mortgage lenders that he/she approaches with the certificate of participation that he/she has received from the HUD counseling agency. Unfortunately if this certificate is not submitted along with the other loan application forms, the borrower will not get the financing.

This loan is a great opportunity for those who have gone through bankruptcy – both chapters 7 and 13 - forbearance, pre-foreclosure, deed-in-lieu, foreclosure and loan modification- to get a fresh start. In fact, the long waiting periods before one could get a mortgage (2 years for bankruptcy and 3 years for foreclosure, deed-in-lieu and short sale) have been completely waived. Now if you can show proof that for the last 12 months you have been in economic recovery, gone through the necessary counseling and met your financial obligations, you can get a home loan easily and start on the path of becoming a home owner again.