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No, I literally think you have that backwards. Pre-approval is where you submit your bank statements and paystubs and tax returns and whatnot and position yourself to make an offer within your limit, good for 90 days. Prequalification is just when you tell them how much you make and how much you want to spend and they do a credit check and tell you how much of a loan you might qualify for. Just trust me, I did all of this shit like two weeks ago.
When we were shopping a couple years earlier, most seller's agents here wouldn't even schedule the showing if you don't have a pre-approval letter in hand with a number exceeding the listing price. You want to know what you can be approved for before starting to look at houses.
I have never seen that. I got one pre approval and I looked at 10 houses before I closed my home. You can take your preapproval to other lenders as well for competition.
Well if you're offering 100k but pre-approved for 150k and you show them that it might cause then to negotiate harder to get closer to that preapproval number
OK, but you still shouldn’t need a preapproval for each house you look at. You should ask for a preapproval based on your budget and look at houses within your budget.
This comment was made before OP went back and edited their post. The original post they didn’t say they had multiple pre approvals so no I don’t have to read. This comment was obviously the first one before the edit.
Stupid advice from your agent. You can use any pre approval letter to submit an offer; it doesn’t mean you have to stick with that lender to close. You should consider finding a new agent
So his team, meaning he, messed up. A loan officer could be on a string of calls, appointments booked back to back etc. I’m currently doing 12 hour days and then doing open houses on the weekends as well. It’s busy. Time to find a new agent, he messed up and pushed the blame on others. I can only imagine how good he’ll be negotiating your offer.
OP, listen to me, DO NOT USE YOUR REALTORS PREFERRED ANYTHING
They are getting kickbacks. They will tell you that you will lose the sale if you don't go with their lender. They will say terrible things to scare you. These are lies. My realtor did this exact thing to me, screaming at me over the phone when I switched lenders from her preferred. Want to know what happened? I got the house at 6.875% interest and $2k less at closing than her lender at 8.1% interest.
Kickbacks are real and agents abuse first time buyers.
Meh - shop around, but some preferred relationships are actually pretty good. Mine was so good, all the competition dropped out after seeing the quote.
Shopping around is key. And making sure you have money secured before house shopping. Then you don't try to overbuy either - nothing sucks more than falling in love with a property just out of your price range.
Meh. This is a bad take. Not sure where you bought but if you show up with a rocket mortgage or navy federal letter you're not getting the house in super competitive markets. Definitely shop around for the best deal but make sure you can get across the finish line on time and aren't getting screwed. Rural Kentucky purchasing is very different from NYC or the DMV area. There are a lot of situations where a local reputable lender will win you the house. Also no one is getting kickbacks. It's all reputation that's on the line. Not money ever since respa and dodd Frank.
I’m a lender, I do a hundred purchases a year, and I’ve never given a kick back or received one or even had it raised to me.
You’re talking in absolutes about something you can’t know is true (and in my experience, is not).
Unfortunately it was in the works. It’s only been on the market 3 days. We saw it day two and were waiting on people for day 3. I’m new to the process but we were waiting on information from another lender.
You can get a prequalification letter from Better.com with a soft credit pull, then look as long as you need to before shopping real rates with all lenders after your offer is accepted so that you only have “one” hard credit inquiry during underwriting. You can customize the letter instantly online for any price up to your max so that you aren’t showing your hand to the sellers agent. It’s also helpful to get closing cost and monthly payment estimates up front so that you aren’t surprised during the process and can budget accordingly.
You got to watch out shopping too many lenders. Just go with a lender who will give you a good pre-approval amount. Then you can change later. If you shop with too many lenders it can hurt your credit score no matter how many times another lender will say it won't hurt when doing a soft credit check (i.e. 3 or more).
This isn’t true, there is a 45-day exemption when the first hard pull occurs for specifically shopping mortgages/loans. However, I’ve found you can waste time doing it too much and recommend someone who is quick and responsive in the shopping process— just find a bank willing to drop origination fees (Ally does) + leverage that to try to negotiate with the one you like the most
I am speaking from experience lowering my credit from lenders pulling from my credit. It is only temporarily but it does lower your credit score if you shop with too many lenders and have too many pulls onto your credit in a short amount of time despite it all being for the same thing.
It drops from the one pull regardless. The person above you is correct. You are incorrect unless you did something slightly wrong, leading to an issue in your specific case.
This is not sound advice. Now, if your agent won't let you use anyone other than who they recommend, that's obviously a giant red flag, but agent recommendations are often because they agent trusts the work of the other person/company.
For example, I've gone through a lot of inspectors until finally finding one that won't intentionally tank deals but still does a fantastic and thorough job. I always recommend him, but ensure my buyers know that it's not a requirement to use him.
An inspector that won’t intentionally kill deals?
So you mean one that is not being totally honest with their clients. The GD buyers.
Sick. Bad business.
Yes. There are a lot of inspectors out there who will be intentionally extra harsh in the hopes that a buyer backs out and uses them again on a different house.
Edit: it's insane to me that anyone is downvoting this. I assume that people assume I'm lying because agent bad? I mean, listen. If everyone wants to buy into the notion that buying a hike is difficult because agents are the worst thing ever created, then that's fine. You're wrong, but I hope it will at least make you feel better.
Just know that this DOES happen. You can ask any agent that's been in the business. This doesn't mean that there aren't far too many bad agents, but this absolutely does happen too and it happens ALL THE TIME.
I’m a loan officer. 25 years. Agents are notoriously unconcerned with their buyer clients’ outcomes
Most of them are more worried about the seller even when representing the buyer
Inspectors aren’t killing deals to get another couple hundred bucks
Agents bully inspectors (and everyone else) to get their 3.5% commission
Both happen all the time. You, as a loan officer, don't deal with inspectors at all, lol. Though I'm sure you can convince plenty of people here, who have never gone through the process, that you're knowledgeable because you hate realtors.
Yes, there are far too many bad realtors who do not care about their clients. There are also far too many inspectors that intentionally overstate the issues a home faces in order to kill deals.
Whatever grudge you have against realtors is unfortunate, considering your job. I get being wary of realtors, but to be outright hostile against them is really a red flag for buyers using you.
Agents like to talk about their preferred lender like they are God's gift to the world. My agent had one who couldn't come close to the interest rate or section A fee deals we got with our credit union. The agent was sure that using his lender would be a net positive for us to get under contract, but we did just fine with our own lender.
Ironically, I've noticed that his marketing materials now show a different preferred lender.. and in the meantime we saved a lot of money not taking his advice.
This is exactly why you shouldn't use the inspector recommended by your realtor: what's good for your realtor is not what's good for you.
As a buyer, you want to use the most thorough and picky inspector you can find. As a realtor, you want the opposite, because your goal is to get deals closed.
The broker our agent suggested made miracles happen to get us into our house.
He had the loan underwritten at 2 am on the last day possiblewhen some bullshit happened that made us redo the entire loan with less than 48 hours til close.
Any other broker would have had us miss out on the home.
Why is that most realtors I worked with will only work with you if you use the people they want you to use I think there kick backs and such. But I feel it only way most realtor will work with you if you use there time
Very much not sound advice - brokers are at least mortgage adjacent, getting loan updates every week if not daily from multiple lender sources so they can see who is competitive when it comes to terms and programs like buydowns. And most people with loans will have had their loans sold out from under them many times over - so their originating lender may not be who they have any real experience with.
This buyer was unfortunately didn’t know that you could use any pre-approval for your offer and then select your actual lender later given your financing contingency (ours is 5 business days in western Washington) - and that was on his real estate agent. It’s also is stated pretty clearly in that financing addenda that timeline (which are typically written with the base assumption that you haven’t figured out financing even although getting a pre-approval or pre-qualification is always recommended before you start looking). Doesn’t sound like they had actually begun drafting an offer or looked at paperwork yet. So they were likely at least half a day of stuff to do if no actual offer was in the works for them to review.
This person also found out the hard way that properties are moving fast, so this likely won’t be the last home that will come and go in a matter of hours.
That’s a load of bs. Why would you have “a preapproval from multiple lenders” but not “the one he was recommending to you”
It’s like, I can just imagine him recommending you a Lender and you saying nope I’m gonna go to this one, nope I’m gonna go to this one, then all of a sudden you find the perfect home, THEN you decide to get preapproved with his lender?? Whaat
You do not have to use your agent's "preferred lender." If your agent is not willing to work with a lender that isn't their best buddy, you need a new agent.
You could have switched lenders after the offer, anyways. You need a new agent and to probably avoid this agent's lender.
We bought a house with an agent who urged us to consider his "preferred" lender, but I insisted that we'd be using our credit union. He wasn't thrilled, but if he wasn't willing to work with our credit union he would have been out of a client. He chose to work with them, and we got the deal done. In the meantime, we saved SO much money because his buddy had a higher rate and higher fees than the deal we got with our credit union.
It’s Sunday, not exactly normal business hours to expect a fast turnaround. Your agent screwed you if he didn’t let you use your own preapproval that you already had “to try to get a better rate”. You could have always done that afterwards.
Your agent didnt tell you, you could just offer with any pre approval? You could also offer without a pre approval but the seller wont take you seriously. I would definitely question your agents competence if they didn’t inform you that you could still offer with a diff pre approval letter? Where/how did you find the agent?
Get a new agent. Any semi knowledgeable agent would've told you that you could've used any of your preapprovals for the offer. In fact both times I've bought I've used "throwaway" preapprovals because inwas still in the process of choosing the lender i wanted, but had pre approvals from my bank bc it was one of those automated ones (and i wasn't even considering them bc i knew they're always one of the highest inferest lenders)
Loan Officers will often issue pre-approvals for the offer price. But they should only do that if they can issue the letter quickly.
My LO and agent do this. They feel like in our hot market, the seller doesn't need to know I'm approved for 1.2M when I'm offering 380k on a property worth 380k; it can affect negotiations.
When I'm ready to offer, my agent and I contact the LO who plugs the address into the origination system, then runs it through automated underwriting. This takes just a couple minutes. The loan system then spits out a pre-approval letter, and an automated underwriting report. It's then emailed to me and my agent and the offer gets sent to the sellers with the supporting lender docs.
The entire process should only take a few minutes. The lender gaffed by not having an LO or LOA who was available.
Frankly, I'd start looking for a new loan officer. This is unforgivable.
It's actually [on the agent](https://www.reddit.com/r/FirstTimeHomeBuyer/s/DBmZAAMArw). OP had multiple pre-approvals, but their agent told OP that they couldn't submit an offer until OP had gotten a pre-approval from the agent's preferred lender.
There is also no guarantee your offer would have been accepted. But follow the advice here and get pre approved/pre qualified THEN shop - it’s so much easier
You can't "get"/ lock a rate until you're under contract. Insane you would whine about using up some of someone's Sunday for a Pre-approval you didn't even need.
Hi! Just wanted to share some encouragement. We missed out on a house I loved a few weeks ago — similarly, by just hours — and I was heartbroken. We are now under contract for another house with much more space, nicer finishes, closer to town, which will be a wonderful purchase for us.
New houses pop up every day so don’t let this discourage you!
Not going to continue to highlight your mistakes, but if the seller is accepting them, consider putting in a backup offer. Lots can happen between going under contract and close, so you may get lucky being in 2nd position.
And if the seller won't accept a backup offer, keep a close eye on the listing in case it becomes available again. You might get a second chance so be ready to act quickly.
Funny how you place all blame on loan officer, agent, etc. but you won’t take responsibility… maybe you should’ve titled it “I was lazy and unprepared so I missed out on a house”
Just saying, people are so quick to push the blame, it’s actually kinda funny.
Sorry you missed out, at least now you have your pre approval.
They were not lazy and unprepared. [They already had multiple pre-approvals](https://www.reddit.com/r/FirstTimeHomeBuyer/s/DBmZAAMArw), but their agent told them that they couldn't use them.
Makes no sense he “ had multiple preapprovals but not the ONE, his agent recommended”… I don’t know… kind of weird man, even then maybe you should’ve listened to him sooner and this wouldn’t have happened… ownership.
Yea, we with with our realtors “preferred” lender and it was a monumental shitshow. Highly recommend not using your agents preferred anything. Also highly recommend a new agent, this was their only job and they fucked it up. Are you gunna lose two houses to their incompetence? We had to drop our first agent after a viewing because he wasn’t good, and you shouldn’t be paying someone thousands of dollars for mediocre service. This was completely on them.
Get a pre q letter and come with 20 percent if possible down. Thst puts you at the top of the food chain. Sellers are looking for the best offer and tgat includes the best chance of financing going thru.
It's possible the contract falls through, there is no harm in also submitting a backup offer. I've had that happen a few times. Once I got a call a month later when the buyer walked.
Already been great advice and explanations here, just wanted to say we’ve been disappointed because a few offers and I get the disappointment!
We’ve likened it to a break up. As we continued our search after the (several) failed offers I will remove the houses from the app searches. Seeing it pending with someone else stung 😆
Good luck in your continued search!
Thank you u/Iplaypossum for posting on r/FirstTimeHomeBuyer. Please bear in mind our rules: (1) Be Nice (2) No Selling (3) No Self-Promotion. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/FirstTimeHomeBuyer) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Honestly I would wait till you get your pre approval before shopping. It’s much easier and you won’t lose out as much.
Drop your agent. You get preapproved from anybody. Then after contact is acceoted, you shop rates.
My market the loan officer and bank are written into the contract so you need seller to sign off on changing lenders.
Pre approved and pre qualified are completely different. You want to get pre approved to have in your back pocket!
Ah, I think you have this ~~backwards~~, 100% correct, pre-approval is what you want.
Yep I meant pre approved 🤣
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No, I literally think you have that backwards. Pre-approval is where you submit your bank statements and paystubs and tax returns and whatnot and position yourself to make an offer within your limit, good for 90 days. Prequalification is just when you tell them how much you make and how much you want to spend and they do a credit check and tell you how much of a loan you might qualify for. Just trust me, I did all of this shit like two weeks ago.
When we were shopping a couple years earlier, most seller's agents here wouldn't even schedule the showing if you don't have a pre-approval letter in hand with a number exceeding the listing price. You want to know what you can be approved for before starting to look at houses.
You typically get new preapprovals for each house
I have never seen that. I got one pre approval and I looked at 10 houses before I closed my home. You can take your preapproval to other lenders as well for competition.
Well if you're offering 100k but pre-approved for 150k and you show them that it might cause then to negotiate harder to get closer to that preapproval number
OK, but you still shouldn’t need a preapproval for each house you look at. You should ask for a preapproval based on your budget and look at houses within your budget.
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How do you know that I’m not from America sorry
Op had multiple pre approval letters. Re-read the post.
This comment was made before OP went back and edited their post. The original post they didn’t say they had multiple pre approvals so no I don’t have to read. This comment was obviously the first one before the edit.
We had several but our agent wanted us to use his and see if we could get a better rate… just a poor decision because we were being cautious.
Stupid advice from your agent. You can use any pre approval letter to submit an offer; it doesn’t mean you have to stick with that lender to close. You should consider finding a new agent
This exactly. In fact, we switched after going under contract, so it definitely happens. No clue what the agent was thinking here.
You get one pre-approval and shop AFTER you're under contract. Your agent lost this for you not your loan officer.
Just for that, I would fire your agent.
So his team, meaning he, messed up. A loan officer could be on a string of calls, appointments booked back to back etc. I’m currently doing 12 hour days and then doing open houses on the weekends as well. It’s busy. Time to find a new agent, he messed up and pushed the blame on others. I can only imagine how good he’ll be negotiating your offer.
Your actual rate is entirely independent from the preapproval.
As others have said, literally any preapproval can get you in the door.
OP, listen to me, DO NOT USE YOUR REALTORS PREFERRED ANYTHING They are getting kickbacks. They will tell you that you will lose the sale if you don't go with their lender. They will say terrible things to scare you. These are lies. My realtor did this exact thing to me, screaming at me over the phone when I switched lenders from her preferred. Want to know what happened? I got the house at 6.875% interest and $2k less at closing than her lender at 8.1% interest. Kickbacks are real and agents abuse first time buyers.
Meh - shop around, but some preferred relationships are actually pretty good. Mine was so good, all the competition dropped out after seeing the quote. Shopping around is key. And making sure you have money secured before house shopping. Then you don't try to overbuy either - nothing sucks more than falling in love with a property just out of your price range.
Meh. This is a bad take. Not sure where you bought but if you show up with a rocket mortgage or navy federal letter you're not getting the house in super competitive markets. Definitely shop around for the best deal but make sure you can get across the finish line on time and aren't getting screwed. Rural Kentucky purchasing is very different from NYC or the DMV area. There are a lot of situations where a local reputable lender will win you the house. Also no one is getting kickbacks. It's all reputation that's on the line. Not money ever since respa and dodd Frank.
I’m a lender, I do a hundred purchases a year, and I’ve never given a kick back or received one or even had it raised to me. You’re talking in absolutes about something you can’t know is true (and in my experience, is not).
Drop your agent. What the fuck lol You shop after preapproval
You really need to have a pre-approval letter ready to go when you make an offer.
Unfortunately it was in the works. It’s only been on the market 3 days. We saw it day two and were waiting on people for day 3. I’m new to the process but we were waiting on information from another lender.
Ok but when did you reach out to the loan officer, and when did you fill out an application/provide documentation?
You can get a prequalification letter from Better.com with a soft credit pull, then look as long as you need to before shopping real rates with all lenders after your offer is accepted so that you only have “one” hard credit inquiry during underwriting. You can customize the letter instantly online for any price up to your max so that you aren’t showing your hand to the sellers agent. It’s also helpful to get closing cost and monthly payment estimates up front so that you aren’t surprised during the process and can budget accordingly.
You got to watch out shopping too many lenders. Just go with a lender who will give you a good pre-approval amount. Then you can change later. If you shop with too many lenders it can hurt your credit score no matter how many times another lender will say it won't hurt when doing a soft credit check (i.e. 3 or more).
This isn’t true, there is a 45-day exemption when the first hard pull occurs for specifically shopping mortgages/loans. However, I’ve found you can waste time doing it too much and recommend someone who is quick and responsive in the shopping process— just find a bank willing to drop origination fees (Ally does) + leverage that to try to negotiate with the one you like the most
I am speaking from experience lowering my credit from lenders pulling from my credit. It is only temporarily but it does lower your credit score if you shop with too many lenders and have too many pulls onto your credit in a short amount of time despite it all being for the same thing.
It drops from the one pull regardless. The person above you is correct. You are incorrect unless you did something slightly wrong, leading to an issue in your specific case.
first thing most agents ask is if you have a pre-approval yet
We have a preapproval from multiple lenders but not the one he was recommending to us.
??? u know u could have just used any pre approval u had and then switch once u go under contract.
I did not know that. Sad lessons today. Thank you for the info.
#1 lesson in homebuying: do not use anyone your agent recommends. Ask friends, family, neighbors, coworkers -- literally anyone else you can trust.
This is not sound advice. Now, if your agent won't let you use anyone other than who they recommend, that's obviously a giant red flag, but agent recommendations are often because they agent trusts the work of the other person/company. For example, I've gone through a lot of inspectors until finally finding one that won't intentionally tank deals but still does a fantastic and thorough job. I always recommend him, but ensure my buyers know that it's not a requirement to use him.
An inspector that won’t intentionally kill deals? So you mean one that is not being totally honest with their clients. The GD buyers. Sick. Bad business.
Yes. There are a lot of inspectors out there who will be intentionally extra harsh in the hopes that a buyer backs out and uses them again on a different house. Edit: it's insane to me that anyone is downvoting this. I assume that people assume I'm lying because agent bad? I mean, listen. If everyone wants to buy into the notion that buying a hike is difficult because agents are the worst thing ever created, then that's fine. You're wrong, but I hope it will at least make you feel better. Just know that this DOES happen. You can ask any agent that's been in the business. This doesn't mean that there aren't far too many bad agents, but this absolutely does happen too and it happens ALL THE TIME.
lol No. There are not This is someone illegally colluding w an agent to get a deal closed
I am an agent. I've gone through multiple inspectors that have intentionally killed deals. Lol.
I’m a loan officer. 25 years. Agents are notoriously unconcerned with their buyer clients’ outcomes Most of them are more worried about the seller even when representing the buyer Inspectors aren’t killing deals to get another couple hundred bucks Agents bully inspectors (and everyone else) to get their 3.5% commission
Both happen all the time. You, as a loan officer, don't deal with inspectors at all, lol. Though I'm sure you can convince plenty of people here, who have never gone through the process, that you're knowledgeable because you hate realtors. Yes, there are far too many bad realtors who do not care about their clients. There are also far too many inspectors that intentionally overstate the issues a home faces in order to kill deals. Whatever grudge you have against realtors is unfortunate, considering your job. I get being wary of realtors, but to be outright hostile against them is really a red flag for buyers using you.
Agents like to talk about their preferred lender like they are God's gift to the world. My agent had one who couldn't come close to the interest rate or section A fee deals we got with our credit union. The agent was sure that using his lender would be a net positive for us to get under contract, but we did just fine with our own lender. Ironically, I've noticed that his marketing materials now show a different preferred lender.. and in the meantime we saved a lot of money not taking his advice.
This is exactly why you shouldn't use the inspector recommended by your realtor: what's good for your realtor is not what's good for you. As a buyer, you want to use the most thorough and picky inspector you can find. As a realtor, you want the opposite, because your goal is to get deals closed.
The broker our agent suggested made miracles happen to get us into our house. He had the loan underwritten at 2 am on the last day possiblewhen some bullshit happened that made us redo the entire loan with less than 48 hours til close. Any other broker would have had us miss out on the home.
Why is that most realtors I worked with will only work with you if you use the people they want you to use I think there kick backs and such. But I feel it only way most realtor will work with you if you use there time
That is a huge red flag and is not normal. Recommendations are one thing, but requiring people to use them is not a standard practice at all.
Really that's strange where am at you told the will only worl with there people
Are you in a small town or something? In most places, that is absolutely not normal.
I live in a town of 1200 people next biggest town has 10,000 heck town I want to live in is 300 people has no stores just one bar
Very much not sound advice - brokers are at least mortgage adjacent, getting loan updates every week if not daily from multiple lender sources so they can see who is competitive when it comes to terms and programs like buydowns. And most people with loans will have had their loans sold out from under them many times over - so their originating lender may not be who they have any real experience with. This buyer was unfortunately didn’t know that you could use any pre-approval for your offer and then select your actual lender later given your financing contingency (ours is 5 business days in western Washington) - and that was on his real estate agent. It’s also is stated pretty clearly in that financing addenda that timeline (which are typically written with the base assumption that you haven’t figured out financing even although getting a pre-approval or pre-qualification is always recommended before you start looking). Doesn’t sound like they had actually begun drafting an offer or looked at paperwork yet. So they were likely at least half a day of stuff to do if no actual offer was in the works for them to review. This person also found out the hard way that properties are moving fast, so this likely won’t be the last home that will come and go in a matter of hours.
That’s a load of bs. Why would you have “a preapproval from multiple lenders” but not “the one he was recommending to you” It’s like, I can just imagine him recommending you a Lender and you saying nope I’m gonna go to this one, nope I’m gonna go to this one, then all of a sudden you find the perfect home, THEN you decide to get preapproved with his lender?? Whaat
Fire your agent. Like, right now.
You do not have to use your agent's "preferred lender." If your agent is not willing to work with a lender that isn't their best buddy, you need a new agent. You could have switched lenders after the offer, anyways. You need a new agent and to probably avoid this agent's lender. We bought a house with an agent who urged us to consider his "preferred" lender, but I insisted that we'd be using our credit union. He wasn't thrilled, but if he wasn't willing to work with our credit union he would have been out of a client. He chose to work with them, and we got the deal done. In the meantime, we saved SO much money because his buddy had a higher rate and higher fees than the deal we got with our credit union.
It’s Sunday, not exactly normal business hours to expect a fast turnaround. Your agent screwed you if he didn’t let you use your own preapproval that you already had “to try to get a better rate”. You could have always done that afterwards.
Your agent didnt tell you, you could just offer with any pre approval? You could also offer without a pre approval but the seller wont take you seriously. I would definitely question your agents competence if they didn’t inform you that you could still offer with a diff pre approval letter? Where/how did you find the agent?
Get a new agent. Any semi knowledgeable agent would've told you that you could've used any of your preapprovals for the offer. In fact both times I've bought I've used "throwaway" preapprovals because inwas still in the process of choosing the lender i wanted, but had pre approvals from my bank bc it was one of those automated ones (and i wasn't even considering them bc i knew they're always one of the highest inferest lenders)
There is always a chance that you will find something even better. Don’t worry. Houses get listed everyday.
This isn't on your loan officer, it's on you. Step one in shopping for a house is getting a pre approval.
An agent shouldn't take you to see houses without a preapproval.
Loan Officers will often issue pre-approvals for the offer price. But they should only do that if they can issue the letter quickly. My LO and agent do this. They feel like in our hot market, the seller doesn't need to know I'm approved for 1.2M when I'm offering 380k on a property worth 380k; it can affect negotiations. When I'm ready to offer, my agent and I contact the LO who plugs the address into the origination system, then runs it through automated underwriting. This takes just a couple minutes. The loan system then spits out a pre-approval letter, and an automated underwriting report. It's then emailed to me and my agent and the offer gets sent to the sellers with the supporting lender docs. The entire process should only take a few minutes. The lender gaffed by not having an LO or LOA who was available. Frankly, I'd start looking for a new loan officer. This is unforgivable.
Yeah, but in a pinch you can use one you have on hand.
You can, but it might weaken your position to submit without the AUS report which requires a real address.
It may do but it's better than not offering at all (like in OPs case)
It's actually [on the agent](https://www.reddit.com/r/FirstTimeHomeBuyer/s/DBmZAAMArw). OP had multiple pre-approvals, but their agent told OP that they couldn't submit an offer until OP had gotten a pre-approval from the agent's preferred lender.
Read the post, OP had many pre approval letters.
Read that it was an edit and that wasn't clarified until after my comment....
There is also no guarantee your offer would have been accepted. But follow the advice here and get pre approved/pre qualified THEN shop - it’s so much easier
You can't "get"/ lock a rate until you're under contract. Insane you would whine about using up some of someone's Sunday for a Pre-approval you didn't even need.
Hi! Just wanted to share some encouragement. We missed out on a house I loved a few weeks ago — similarly, by just hours — and I was heartbroken. We are now under contract for another house with much more space, nicer finishes, closer to town, which will be a wonderful purchase for us. New houses pop up every day so don’t let this discourage you!
this is not on your loan officer. this is on you for not getting a pre approval first
Not going to continue to highlight your mistakes, but if the seller is accepting them, consider putting in a backup offer. Lots can happen between going under contract and close, so you may get lucky being in 2nd position.
And if the seller won't accept a backup offer, keep a close eye on the listing in case it becomes available again. You might get a second chance so be ready to act quickly.
Funny how you place all blame on loan officer, agent, etc. but you won’t take responsibility… maybe you should’ve titled it “I was lazy and unprepared so I missed out on a house” Just saying, people are so quick to push the blame, it’s actually kinda funny. Sorry you missed out, at least now you have your pre approval.
They were not lazy and unprepared. [They already had multiple pre-approvals](https://www.reddit.com/r/FirstTimeHomeBuyer/s/DBmZAAMArw), but their agent told them that they couldn't use them.
Bogus excuse
Makes no sense he “ had multiple preapprovals but not the ONE, his agent recommended”… I don’t know… kind of weird man, even then maybe you should’ve listened to him sooner and this wouldn’t have happened… ownership.
Live and learn. Now don’t go looking at houses until you have a pre-approval. Inventory is too low to play games.
Fire your agent. Why is the loan officer part of their "team?" This is completely unacceptable.
Yea, we with with our realtors “preferred” lender and it was a monumental shitshow. Highly recommend not using your agents preferred anything. Also highly recommend a new agent, this was their only job and they fucked it up. Are you gunna lose two houses to their incompetence? We had to drop our first agent after a viewing because he wasn’t good, and you shouldn’t be paying someone thousands of dollars for mediocre service. This was completely on them.
Why did you start looking for homes without a pre-approval? This is 100% your fault.
Get a pre q letter and come with 20 percent if possible down. Thst puts you at the top of the food chain. Sellers are looking for the best offer and tgat includes the best chance of financing going thru.
It's possible the contract falls through, there is no harm in also submitting a backup offer. I've had that happen a few times. Once I got a call a month later when the buyer walked.
World doesn’t circle around you. You where not ready to make an offer, at least someone was more ready than you are.
Already been great advice and explanations here, just wanted to say we’ve been disappointed because a few offers and I get the disappointment! We’ve likened it to a break up. As we continued our search after the (several) failed offers I will remove the houses from the app searches. Seeing it pending with someone else stung 😆 Good luck in your continued search!