The financing of a home can be a complex transaction; it’ll require your time and effort. It involves a lot of different people that will be working behind the scenes to ensure that you’re transaction closes on time. Depending on the type of financing you choose, the process can take 30 to 45 days, start to finish, so it’s best to speak with us first before going out and looking for a home with a Realtor.
Powered By:
Chris Hernandez
Senior Loan Officer
NMLS# 276755
Community Mortgage, LLC
An Equal Housing Lender
NLMS# 224143
T 816-916-7723
Email: chris@communitymortgagellc.com
Community Mortgage, LLC
19045 E. Valley View Pkwy., Suite F Independence, MO 64055
QUESTIONS? CALL: 816-916-7723
- 1. Application
- 2. Prepare Documents
- 3. Find a Realtor
- 4. Shop & Offer
- 5. Inspection
- 6. Appraisal
- 7. Processing & Underwriting
- 8. Closing Disclosure
- 9. Loan Documents & Closing Agent
Fill Out Our Online Mortgage Application
Before you start looking for a home, you’ll need to know how much you can actually afford. The best way to do this is to fill out our online mortgage application and get prequalified. Go to www.mykchomeloan.com or click "Apply Now" below to fill out the application. You’ll need to provide some credit and financial information, such as your job history, income, and the amount of savings you have to buy the home. We will review all your information and then determine the loan amount and the approximate minimum down payment you’re going to need. We will then provide you with a conditional, written preapproval letter which most real estate agents and sellers require, to indicate that you’re serious about buying a home.
Our mortgage team members will give you the individual attention you deserve and treat you with the respect due a valued customer. Let's get started...
Prepare Your Documentation
There is a lot of paperwork that we are going to need to verify information that you supplied in your application. Our Mortgage Application Checklist can help you get prepared, so you won’t be overwhelmed.
Find a Real Estate Agent
Now that you have your preapproval letter, you can contact a real estate agent and start searching for a home, if you haven’t already. Real estate agents are important partners when you’re buying or selling a home. Realtors can provide you with helpful information on homes and neighborhoods that aren’t easily accessible to the public. Their knowledge of the home buying process, negotiating skills, and familiarity with the area you want to live in can be extremely valuable. And best of all, it doesn’t cost you anything to use an agent – they’re compensated from the commission paid by the seller of the home.
Shop for Your Home and then Make an Offer
Your Realtor will sit with you and figure out what you’re looking for in a home, they will then set you up on a search through the Multiple Listing Service. The Multiple Listing Service (MLS) is a database of properties for sale in a particular real estate market, set up and used by your local Realtors. Once you have found some homes that you really like, start getting out and viewing them. You will see a lot of different homes, so be sure to take notes with our Property Evaluation Sheet that we’ve created for you. Once you’ve found a home you like, you and your real estate agent will make an offer to the seller. In the offer, you and your Realtor will be negotiating a fair price based on the value of other comparable homes in the same neighborhood, any repairs you think the home may need or want, and a closing date. Once you and the seller reach an agreement, the house will go into escrow, which is the period of time it takes to complete the remaining steps in the home buying process.
Get a Home Inspection
Typically, purchase offers are contingent on a home inspection of the property to check for signs of structural damage or things that may need fixing. Your real estate agent will help you arrange to have this inspection conducted within a few days of your offer being accepted by the seller. This contingency protects you by giving you a chance to renegotiate your offer or withdraw it without penalty if the inspection reveals significant material damage. Once you receive the report on the home inspector’s findings, you and your real estate agent will decide if you want to ask the seller to fix those items before the closing date. You will also have a walk-through of the home, before the closing date, which gives you a chance to confirm that any agreed-upon repairs have been completed.
Home Appraisal
We will arrange for an appraiser to provide an independent estimate of the value of the home you’re buying, this is called the appraisal. The appraiser is a member of an independent appraisal management company that is not directly associated with any lender. The appraisal report will let you and you’re Realtor know if the home is worth what you are offering to pay for it. It will also make you aware of any necessary repairs required per your financing. Should the home appraise for more than what you’re offering the seller, you walk into the home with equity already established. If the home does not appraise, you and your real estate agent will discuss a few options, you can renegotiate the sales price and have it lowered to the value, you can decide to pay the difference on top of your down payment, or you can cancel the transaction should the seller not want to renegotiate a new price.
Processing & Underwriting
Back when you completed your loan application, your loan officer submitted all your documents and your loan file to the processing department. Processing will go through your file and collect all the necessary outside verifications and reports. Once they’ve completed their procedures, the file will then be assigned to an underwriter. Our underwriters will then review your application and documentation to confirm that it meets all the mortgage requirements, ensuring that every piece of information has been documented and verified. If the underwriter requests additional documentation or conditions, they will ask the processing team and the loan officer to go back to obtain these items. When all the additional documentation has been returned to the
underwriter, the underwriter will issue a loan decision. Once your mortgage has been approved, the underwriter will give a clear to close to the closing department.
Closing Disclosure
When our closing department receives your clear to close, they will coordinate with the title company and confirm all the fees, costs and credits involved with your mortgage. Then when both companies agree on the figures, our closing department will send you the closing disclosure; this disclosure will outline your mortgage on just a few pages. It will also show you what funds you need to come to the closing with. These funds will need to be in the form of a cashier’s check, coming from your bank account that you provided us, and made out to the title company. This new closing disclosure is required to be signed and dated 3 days before the date of your closing. If it is not signed 3 days before closing, it will keep your transaction from closing.
Loan Documents and the Closing Agent
After our closing department receives your signed closing disclosure, they work on getting your loan documents to the closing agent at the title company. Your closing day is a meeting with you, the closing agent, your real estate agent, and your loan officer. Be sure to bring a photo ID along with your cashier’s check. You will sign all the required mortgage loan documents to complete your purchase. Then when everything has been signed, the closing agent will return the loan documents and fund your loan. Typically, once the loan has been funded and recorded with the county, the home is YOURS!