3 Steps to an Easy Mortgage Approval

Photo: shutterstock.com

Risky practices consigned to the past, mortgage lenders are now returning to applying the same standards that your parents had to meet when they purchased their homes. In this landscape, hewing to three commonsense rules will help you receive swift approval of your mortgage application.

1. Maintain a high credit score. Will you pay the money back? That’s really all the lender wants to know. If you have a solid track record of repaying past loans, then you are likely to repay this one. Each credit reporting agency—Experian, Equifax, and Transunion—calculates your credit score. That figure summarizes your reliability as borrower. The higher your credit score, the lower your mortgage rate. The lower your mortgage rate, the lower your monthly payments. So at least in the context of mortgages, good guys finish first.

2. Prove that you earn what you earn. Traditional employment makes loan officers smile because their ideal mortgage candidate has always had the same job, working for the same employer, and enjoying a yearly raise. That level of stability may seem boring to you, but in the eyes of a mortgage broker, change equals risk. Self-employment, career transitions, or periods of unemployment, therefore, present challenges. None of these make it impossible to secure a mortgage, but you may need to work a bit harder to make your case.

3. Make a juicy down payment. Typically, 10 percent is the minimum down payment required for a mortgage, but if you can swing it, putting forward more than 20 percent gets you off the hook for some exasperating expenses—for instance, mortgage insurance. The business of borrowing money can become pretty complicated, but this part couldn’t be much simpler: The more money you put down, the less risk there is for the lender. The less risk for the lender, the greater your chances of getting a mortgage.