You’ve found the home of your dreams, got it under contract, and are working with your lender to gather all of the documents they need to make your loan happen. It’s all going perfectly and you’re getting more and more excited by the day. Then the loan hits underwriting and suddenly you feel like you’re buried in paperwork requests. They need copies of this, letters explaining that, printouts of bank account statements from years ago – they ask for strange things that don’t seem related. It becomes a deluge of requests and you feel like just giving up – no house is worth all this paperwork, is it?
It can be discouraging to have to sift through all of your documents and scanning and sending and resending, but all of that paperwork is leading to your new home. Lenders will request things once, twice, three times…it can be a bit frustrating. The underwriter’s job is to mitigate the lender’s risk and part of that involves creating a papertrail so that there are no doubts about what they see when they look at your financial picture. Often it seems like they’re just harassing you, but they are just creating a file that documents why they felt it was an acceptable risk to give you that loan.
Prepare Paperwork for Your Lender in Advance
While you’ll never be able to predict everything the lender will ask you for, you can start preparing the paperwork long before you apply for the loan. Gather your bank statements, pay stubs, tax documents, loan information – anything reflecting your income and your debts. If you have some outstanding issues, know what they are. You can get a free copy of your credit report through www.annualcreditreport.com and check for anything that might show up. Do a household budget (you’ll be surprised where you can save some money!). The more documentation you have prepared, the better.
When the lender starts asking for paperwork, turn it in quickly. It can get a bit frustrating when they ask you for the same thing you’ve turned in 10 different times – just take a breath and resend it. The quicker you turn those items in, the quicker someone can review them. Sometimes there will seem that there is no rhyme or reason to what they’re asking, but to them it makes perfect sense. Don’t question it, just send it in and ask if they need anything else.
image courtesy of isaacbowen
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