#36 Help with the Puzzle


Experience counts!  Let’s just start with that.  From the moment you first decide to pursue acquiring a Mortgage loan, you’ve set your feet on a path that can be any one of many kinds of experiences!     It would be great if it could be smooth sailing from the get-go, with all the answers being the right answers, all financial details and requirements in pristine condition, and timing for everything exactly spot-on!   (I wish!) However, while almost every Mortgage loan application process has challenges, from large to small, almost all are quite manageable.

In this very important context, “experience counts” in the form of your Mortgage loan agent, their personal know-how applied on your behalf, their willingness and availability to help and their insights to the process!    Your local Mortgage loan officer views their relationships with their clients as relationships with equal integrity and comfort whether at the office going over documents – or spontaneously meeting over the fresh vegetables at Safeway! 

Each loan applicant is unique.  While many procedural generalizations can apply across the board to all applicants, the specifics of your history, your financial profile, your dream house and your personal circumstances are what make you “you” and no one else!  In the process of qualifying for your loan, your Mortgage loan officer will get to know quite a lot about you.  

Hopefully you will see that your loan officer is the place to go with any questions, confusion or misgivings. Your Mortgage loan officer is there to help you jump through all the hoops – and there are plenty!   Learning how to efficiently research, track and provide the needed information can be made easier when you remember your loan officer is there to help!

The path to each loan is kind of like a jigsaw puzzle – and to put it together, the way it must be, shouldn’t be daunting.  Nevertheless, the process sometimes feels pressurized, so don’t assume you should automatically know all the answers to some of the difficult or sensitive questions.  Whether about money matters, employment, relationship status (as it might relate to the financial obligations) or dependents – when in doubt, ask!

It is simply a fact, drawn from experience, that some applicants are a bit (sometimes a lot!) nervous about sharing some information.  However, the more forthcoming you are, the better your loan officer gets to know you.  From the experience of acquainting, your loan officer begins to speculate on the best ways to develop your specific document package.   Your loan officer takes into consideration not just how much money is needed, but how your “story” can best fit into the combination of (1) your profile and (2) what a lender requires.  Gradually, it goes together.

You may think  (as some people assume) that it is all about credit alone or your job alone, etc., but that is simply not true on its face; people as individuals do matter and do influence the loan approval process.  Yes, there are aspects where the numbers have to add up in specific ways, but part of my message here is that the personal connection between loan officer and applicant needs to be as open and thorough as possible.   Because, in going over difficult or negative aspects of past circumstances, for instance, you may be unaware of where “the lines” are drawn.   Your loan officer does know how importantly past troubles may  – or may not – influence your ultimate qualification.  For that exact reason and others, the relationship has to be one of mutual trust that allows you to be forthcoming and allows your loan officer to recognize where help is needed and how to provide it.

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