What Does It Mean To Be "Pre Approved"?

When you're preparing to purchase a new home, you will have investigated financing, and someone will have looked at how much financing you qualify for.

Once they have done that, they are adequately informed as to what you will - and will not - be able to purchase.

Within 30 minutes of your time and theirs, they should be able to tell you how much, if any, you can afford. Once the lender knows this information, they will typically send you a form stating how much you can purchase. This should be given to your realtor before making an offer on a MN home that's for sale. The reason for this is that makes your offer much stronger.

Anyone can make an offer on a home, but not everyone can qualify to buy the home. So you see, from the perspective of the seller, if you're offer comes in, accompanied by a pre-approval letter from the bank saying that you qualify to buy the home, that tells them the offer most likely won't fall through because of financing.

Conversely, if you're offer comes in with no evidence of your being able to finance the home, the seller will wonder how serious you are. It is most definitely worth 30 minutes of your time to have this piece of paper submitted with your offer. And your realtor will know exactly what to do with it.

If your agent is a good one, he or she will also know how to write up the offer as a strong one in your favor. There are many pages of legalese for you to cover, and making an offer is actually far easier than it really looks.

Let your MN real estate agent guide you through the detailed paperwork (the tough part), while you worry about choosing the right one, and what's involved with packing and moving.