Can I Be a Home Owner?

How much can I afford?
Payment calculator
Costs of owning a home
Find a homebuyer program
Getting pre-qualified for a loan

Finding a Home

Making an Offer on a Home

Applying for a Loan

Inspections

The closing process

Glossary

Getting pre-qualified for a loan

Pre-qualification for a loan can help you concentrate on a specific price range, and save you time so you won't be looking at properties well over what you can afford to purchase. Pre-qualification is essentially an estimate of how much you can afford to spend on a house. You would typically take the step of getting pre-qualified sometime before you begin your search, and before your actual loan application meeting.

An additional step you may take is to get pre-approval for a mortgage loan. That means that your loan application has actually been processed by a lender, and a specific mortgage amount has been approved for you. Some buyers feel they have more negotiating power when they can provide this pre-approval proof to the seller. As with pre-qualification, lenders will use established guidelines to determine the size of your loan approval.