Useful Mortgage & Finance Information For Prospective Real Estate Owners
If you plan to buy your first house at some or other stage, you're in all likelihood not quite familiar with the whole mortgage & finance world....
If you plan to buy your first house at some or other stage, you’re in all likelihood not quite familiar with the whole mortgage & finance world. You probably also wonder whether you even qualify for a mortgage loan. Let’s give you some relevant information.
A mortgage is basically just a loan granted to you by your bank or another financial institution. The property which you buy is then used to secure this loan. This of course implies that if you can’t keep up with the monthly repayments, the bank will eventually evict you from the property and sell it to someone else. This is of course only after they’ve followed a series of legal steps.
With the current economic downturn and the large number of properties being repossessed, you’re not likely to get a 100% loan as a first-time buyer. This means you’ll have to save up for a substantial deposit. How large the deposit has to be will depend on how much you earn, your assets and your credit record.
Regardless of how credit worthy you are, the house that you buy must also be approved by the bank. What will happen is that they will send out a valuator to do a valuation of the house. Should he find that the value of the house is less than the price you offered, your mortgage application will most likely be turned down. Alternatively the bank will ask you to put down a very large deposit.
One can sometimes spend a long time to locate that perfect house, only to find that the bank refuses your mortgage application. To prevent this from happening, you can always apply to be pre-approved. What happens here is that the bank will ask for you to provide proof of how much you earn and the assets you have. They’ll also check your credit record. They will subsequently give you pre-approval for a loan of a certain size. The house that you buy still has to be worth at least this amount to qualify though.
It’s always good to err on the side of caution. You need to have a savings account not only to cover a possible deposit, but also for legal costs, transfer costs as well as possible alterations you would want to make at your new house. Banks often have special investment accounts with favorable interest rates for this purpose. This will also help you a lot when eventually applying for a mortgage.
As you will see from what has been written above, the mortgage & finance industry isn’t all that complicated. A substantial savings account and a good credit record will go a long way to ensure that you’re approved for a mortgage. It’s all about proving that you’re responsible with money.
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