If you’re in the market for a new house, you’ve probably heard that you want to get pre… qualified or pre-approved?
What’s the difference anyways?
There’s actually a big difference. Pre-qualified is more of a preliminary step. It gives you a general idea of much home you can afford. We will examine your credit, income, assets, and debts and you’ll have a general idea of the price range you’re looking for. You may also see that you need to increase your savings or lower debts before you buy. While pre-qualifying is an initial step, pre-approval is a deeper dive and being pre-approved carries more weight with sellers.
To get pre-approved we will verify you income, assets, etc. and you will be more official (of course you still have to apply for a mortgage). Being pre-approved is almost a necessity in competitive housing markets, as realtors do not want to waste time and you will have a better chance of having your bid accepted. Now that we know the difference you may wonder what’s the point of getting pre-qualified – why not just get pre-approved? Good question – basically its much faster and it gives you a good starting point to start your home search. Pre-qualify or pre-approve we can help you with both – apply on our website or call us to get started.

As the Federal Reserve has indicated lowering inflation is a top priority and raising short term interest rates as its primary tool to do this, we have seen mortgage markets react with higher rates (mortgage rates are not directly tied to the Fed rate, but they often move in the same direction).
The 30 year rate moved up to 5.89% this week accord B ing to Freddie Mac. While these rates are higher than pandemic lows, the still fall into the historic “normal” range.
While the Fed is taking a strong position against inflation, we are seeing market conditions improve in some areas. As Dawit Kebede, an economist for the Credit Union National Association noted recently, “there are signs that some of the main drivers of inflation are easing, such as lower oil and other commodity prices in July, slower wage growth, and declining supply chain pressures.”
There is also a renewed interest in ARM loans with the 5/1 ARM at an average of 4.52% last week.
Every loan scenario is unique so fill out our loan analyzer on our website and we can see what program is a good fit for you!