Chris Coley - Unified Titled Company

Great News!

The Federal Tax credit has home buyers scrambling to find just the right home for their family.

As the April 30^th deadline looms on the horizon, one thing to be sure to tell your Sellers, is to make absolutely sure the buyers have been pre-approved by a reputable lender. The mad scramble will have unqualified buyers out there writing offers before they have loan approval. This could lead to your sellers accepting an offer, taking the home off the market and missing out on offers from approved buyers!

Demand a letter of loan approval from the buyers, not just a "pre-qualification" letter. This should assure your sellers that the buyers have made formal loan application, had their credit checked, income and asset information reviewed and in most cases received an automated approval.

If you are representing buyers that are home shopping, please encourage them to submit a full loan application to their lender in order to receive a full loan approval (subject to fully executed contract, appraisal, title, etc.) This will allow for your offer to be stronger than an offer from a "pre-qualified" buyer to the seller.

I would also encourage a listing agent to contact the buyer's lender to get a sense of where the buyers are in the application process.

I received a call from a Realtor yesterday asking me why Wells Fargo is so slow in approving his short sale contract. It had been over 5 weeks and he still had not received an approval on his offer yet.

After hearing his story, I did some checking on the loan that they were asking for a short sale on.

Turns out, it was a FNMA insured loan, with mortgage insurance. I let the Realtor know that Wells Fargo may have already approved the short sale offer, but may be waiting on not only FNMA to approve it, but maybe needing an approval from the Mortgage Insurance company as well.

It's difficult to tell how long FNMA is taking to approve these short sales and even more difficult to find out how long the Mortgage Insurance Company is taking, let alone who the Mortgage Insurance Company is.

Bottom line, be aware it may take longer when there is mortgage insurance on the loan to get your short sale approval.