Yesterday, Renae Stucki Realtor brought you a story about how the government shutdown might effect buyers shopping for homes.  Today, we bring you another story about mortgage interest rates.

If you read the blog yesterday, you’ll recall our suggestion about getting pre-approved for a home loan now instead of waiting until you’re ready to make an offer.  Because of delays getting verification from IRS and other government offices, it can take longer than ever to get all your information together to qualify.  That’s one reason for getting a pre-approval at the onset of shopping for a house.  

Getting a lot of the paperwork out of the way upfront does a number of things for you.  First of all, it gives you a range you can shop in.  If you can only qualify for $200k, it won’t do you any good looking at properties in the $300k range.  Too often, a buyer falls in love with a property they can’t afford.  It ruins their experience.  If you limit your shopping to properties in your price range, you will have greater success in finding one that you can love.

Second, it saves time when you’re ready to put in an offer and finalize your financing.  Especially with government delays.  You’ll have a lot of the work out of the way.

Third, you can lock in a rate.  The article we want to suggest today deals mostly with refinancing existing mortgages, but it does stress the importance of locking in a rate now.  And that’s the emphasis we wanna put on this entry.  You can read it HERE.  In the past months the landscape of mortgage rates has drastically changed and we’re looking at more changes in the upcoming months.  With the Fed preparing to ease stimulus and values rising, the interest rate has no place else to go but up.

Now is the time to lock in your rate.  Today.  It can change overnight and there’s no time to waste.  Call today and Renae will help you get started locking in a rate and finding out how much you can qualify for.  There are still wonderful deals to be had, but the great opportunities are fading fast.  It’s your dream home, but we’ll make it come true.