Absolutely! Even if you haven't so much as picked out houses to visit yet, it's important to see your mortgage professional first. Why? What can we do for you if you haven't negotiated a price, and don't know yet how much you want to borrow?

A mortgage broker has the ability to shop the market of lenders and bankers to find the best loan for your situation. With hundreds of wholesale lenders to choose from your mortgage broker can choose the "pick of the litter" when it comes to financing.  The current trend in today's market is for the sales agency or firm to offer "in house financing" and often heavily discourage using a mortgage broker claiming they have the best rates.  Many of our clients and friends have fallen victim to this practice and were placed in loans that generated profits for the company with little benefits to the client.  Not to mention home sales and mortgage financing really are two separate professions and it is truly difficult to provide top service doing both.

This is a touchy situation as most mortgage brokers work with sales agents or firms when there is no in house financing available. In some instances sales firms do offer a competitive product. But under no circumstance should you not double check what they offer with a mortgage brokerage firm such as Code 3 Loans.

When we pre-qualify you, we help you determine how much of a monthly mortgage payment you can afford, and how much we can loan you. We do this by considering your income and debts, your employment and residence situations, your available funds for downpayment and required reserves, and some other things. It's short and to the point, and we keep the paperwork to a minimum!

Once you qualify, we give you what's called a Pre-Qualification Letter (your real estate agent might call it a "pre-qual"), which says that we are working with you to find the best loan to meet your needs and that we're confident you'll qualify for a loan for a certain amount. In many cases we can give you a conditional loan approval from the actual lender within a matter of a few days which carries even more clout than a "pre-qual" letter because it is lender direct.

When you find a house that catches your eye, and you decide to make an offer, being pre-qualified for a mortgage will do a couple of things. First, it lets you know how much you can offer. Your real estate agent will help you decide on an appropriate offer, but being pre-qualified gives you the confidence to know you can follow through.

More importantly, to a home seller, your being pre-qualified is like you walked into their house with a suitcase full of cash to make the deal! They won't have to wonder if they're wasting their time because you'll never qualify for a mortgage to finance the amount you're offering for the home. You have the clout of a buyer ready to make the deal right now!