Most of the people reading this site don’t have the luxury of taking a lot of time to find a place to live. That is why this step is even more important for you than for most buyers.
First of all, we are talking about getting pre-approved for a mortgage. There are two terms regarding this process that you need to know: pre-qualified and pre-approved. You need to get pre-approved – here’s why.
When you get pre-qualified, the lender will basically just ask you some questions about your financial situation and based on your answers they will tell you how much of a mortgage loan you would most likely qualify to receive.
Getting pre-approved is similar except a little more in depth – they will pull a credit report as well (sometimes this may be done in getting pre-qualified but not always).
Here’s the deal, you are in a unique financial situation. You have a lot of debt most likely. If you’re entering residency, then you haven’t had a job for at least 4 years. If you’re leaving residency, you haven’t been making diddly squat for the past 3-5 years. [A working spouse helps in both these situations].
In other words – outside of your new last two initials – on paper you might just look like a bum. That’s OK. There are physician loans that understand all of this and if you have a working spouse you may not need to be included in the pre-approval process anyway. But still… get pre-approved.
The last thing you need right now is to spend your precious free time looking at houses only to find out when you make an offer that you don’t qualify to buy a house in the price range you have been looking.
Getting pre-approved will reduce this possibility to an acceptable level of unlikelihood.
SUGGESTED STEPS
- Gather all the things in my Mortgage Folder Checklist
- Get pre-approved with a physician mortgage with terms that are acceptable to you. You can (and should) still shop around for other mortgages but you will at least have this one available to guide you in the price range you can look in.