Houston Nesties
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Pre-approval needed to look at a home?
We are casually looking for a new home. I found one we want to look at on HAR and DH called to schedule an appt. Apparently they are only showing the home to people who have a pre-approved loan app. This is only the second home we've inquired about via the same method (we don't even have a realtor yet). Is this a common thing? I'd prefer to wait until we found a home we liked and really wanted before we started the process. Am I doing things backward?
Re: Pre-approval needed to look at a home?
I don't know, but my guess is that maybe the house is a higher price than the average home cost so they request preapproval.
If you need a realtor BPaullo is great, quite a few of us have used her.
Most realtors will require you to have pre-approval before showing you houses.
It is to make sure you are in the appropriate price range and there won't be any financing issues if you do want to make an offer.
Ditto, kind of a way to make sure it is worth showing the house.
Thanks for the input! Our previous experience was about six years ago, and I know we had a realtor then. We're just not ready to get aggressive at looking but would jump on the right house. I was surprised because the house we wanted to see is not priced super high or anything in comparison to the area, and we had looked at another home nearby with no problem.
I guess we'll have to get a realtor and look at getting pre-approved so we can just start the process.
This...plus, from the buyer's perspective -it keeps you from falling in love with a house you see only to find out you can't qualify for it. No need to potentially put yourself through that heartache! Definitely better to know where you stand ahead of time and keep your search within the range that's realistic and comfortable for your family.
MrsCMX,
I am a real estate professional in Houston, and I stonrgly advise all of my clients to seek preapproval from one to a few lenders prior to looking at homes because of what the PPs were saying about prequalifying buyers. I want to know that you are a serious buyer (not someone just wanting to check out a couple places), and I want to know we are looking within the correct price range. While, I am flexible on that sometimes, I ABSOLUTLEY require one when I place an offer!
The reason you would want one when placing an offer is it may move you to the top of the stack (if multiple offers) because you are already prequalified at the price of the house. Maybe the other offers are not. With the tumultous and tight lending practices these days, that preapproval letter is a huge advantage for you in getting a seller's attention!
If you have any other questions about the home buying process, please feel free to send me a private message. I would be glad to answer any other questions you may have!
-Chris
Showing a house can be a real pain for sellers. They may have children or pets. They have to keep the place clean (or a least they should). If you're serious enough to get a preapproval letter (which takes less than 10 min), they think you're serious about looking at the house.
Open houses are a great way to "window shop".
There is NO commitment from getting a pre approval letter. It just makes the seller feel better. It also prevents you from falling in love with a house you can't have. It's really hard to move down in price range after you've looked up. You're better off knowing exactly what direction you're headed.
It all makes sense from the selling perspective. Obviously I wouldn't try to look at houses I don't think I qualify for, but I understand the changes in lending and the economy have also skewed people's perceptions on what they can afford. I was already thinking about doing it all tomorrow just to have it done so we don't run into the same situation again.
Thanks for the information and the offer! We already have a realtor in mind though.
She changed her name to Chris.
Ditto! Especially the bolded.