February 18, 2016
Are you ready to prequalify for an FHA home loan? If you’ve never tried to do so online you’re probably wondering what information you’ll need to provide to get started. There are a number of steps to take, but before you begin it is very important to point out that prequalifying for a mortgage loan is not the same as loan approval.
You will need to take additional steps with your loan officer before that can happen, but prequalifying helps borrowers determine what is possible with an FHA mortgage, what the loan amount and payments could be, etc.
We’ll use the pre-qualification interface at FHA.com as our reference–it’s located in the center of the page under the heading “Qualify For An FHA Loan”.
The first thing you’ll need to do is state whether you’re applying for a new purchase home loan or a refinance loan. You’ll also need to input the zip code the home you’re looking at is located in, then you will be prompted to enter an assessment of your current credit.
This is a very important step and it’s highly recommended that you request a free copy of your credit report before starting the pre-qualification process for an FHA mortgage or FHA refinance loan.
If you have your credit information ready, the next step after inputting it will be to enter the price range of your home as well as the down payment you want to make. FHA mortgage loans require a minimum of 3.5% down, so it’s best to make the calculation before you start.
The type of property you want to buy–single family, condo, townhome, etc. are all choices you’ll be given. You’ll also be asked if you are currently working with a real estate agent and whether you have found a home. Regardless if the answer is yes or no, you’ll be asked if you are a veteran, whether you have had a bankruptcy in the last three years, and whether you can verify your income.
One very important question to anticipate is whether you have had any late mortgage payments in the past 12 months–this is crucial to the pre-approval process and borrower should know it’s strongly recommended to come to the application process with no fewer than 12 months of on-time payments for all financial obligations.
There are more questions but this gives you a very good idea of how to prepare for the online pre-qualification process. Knowing–and having ready–specific details such as the price or approximate price of the home, your income, and other information will be a big help when you sit down to enter the data.
Do you work in residential real estate? You should know about the free tool offered by FHA.com. It is designed especially for real estate websites; a widget that displays FHA loan limits for the counties serviced by those sites. It is simple to spend a few seconds customizing the state, counties, and widget size for the tool; you can copy the code and paste it into your website with ease. Get yours today:
http://www.fha.com/fha_loan_limits_widget
Joe Wallace has been specializing in military and personal finance topics since 1995. His work has appeared on Air Force Television News, The Pentagon Channel, ABC and a variety of print and online publications. He is a 13-year Air Force veteran and a member of the Air Force Public Affairs Alumni Association. He was Managing editor for www.valoans.com for (8) years and is currently the Associate Editor for FHANewsblog.com.
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