Forum Archive

Hi All,

I was wondering what your thoughts were on when I should start my mortgage pre-qualification and other paperwork.

We’re in the early stages of buying a place, and are still looking at properties… haven’t quite found anything we want to put an offer in on. I’ve been told your credit report is only good for 30-60 days (depending on who you talk to), and I’m not sure we’ll find anything in that time frame so I don’t want my credit pulled unneccessarily too many times in case we don’t find anything we like in the next month or so.

On the other hand, I’ve heard that the whole mortgage process is just taking longer now, with lenders scrutinizing credit, employment history, tax returns, etc etc very closely.

Should we get the process started sooner rather than later because everyhting is going to take longer? Or should we just wait until we think we’ve found a place we like. I feel like in this market it’s highly unlikely we’ll be getting into bidding wars, and don’t feel like I need to have a prequal letter at an open house. But at the same time, we don’t want to miss out on buying a place we like because the paperwork took too long.

experiences?