What Do You Need to Apply for a Mortgage?

Are you applying for a mortgage for the very first time? Or has it been a while since the last time you applied for a mortgage?

If you just answered “yes” to either of these questions, then you might be asking yourself, “What do you need to apply for a mortgage?”, right now. Not everyone is familiar with the different documents that they’ll need to apply for a home loan.

There are quite a few things that you’re going to need to be prepared to provide to a lender when you’re attempting to take out a home loan. It’s why you should take a few moments to learn about how to apply for a mortgage in advance so that you don’t forget anything important.

Check out several of the documents that you’re going to need to have ready when it’s time to put in a mortgage application.

Mortgage Application

The first thing you’re obviously going to need to provide a lender when applying for a mortgage is your actual mortgage application. This will let them know that you’re interested in taking out the best home loan you can find.

This might seem as though it would be a time-consuming process. But nowadays, it’s very easy for people to fill out applications for mortgages.

More often than not, you should be able to apply for a mortgage right online when you want to try and qualify for one. A lender will ask you to provide them with some basic information, including:

• Your name
• Your partner’s name (if they’ll be applying for a mortgage with you)
• Your current address
• Your income
• Your desired home loan
• And more

Your goal should be to make yourself look like a responsible person when applying for a mortgage loan. Make sure you put your best foot forward by providing all applicable information and painting the best possible picture of you as a borrower.

Credit Report

One of the first things that a lender is going to do when you apply for a mortgage through them is pull your credit report and inspect it from top to bottom. It’s why it’s so important for you to check your credit score in advance and make sure it’s in good shape.

If your credit score is down in the dumps, there’s almost no chance that a lender is going to even consider giving you a home loan. They’ll likely say, “Thanks for applying, but no thanks,” and tell you to come back again when you’ve worked on your credit score.

A great credit score isn’t necessarily going to guarantee that you’ll get approved for a mortgage. But it will increase your chances of you moving on to the next step.

Pay Stubs

As we mentioned earlier, you’re going to need to let a lender know what your income is when you fill out an application for a mortgage. But you’re also going to have to take it a step further and prove that you make as much as you say you do by providing a lender with pay stubs.

You should reach out to your employer and ask them for your most recent pay stubs if you don’t have them handy. Otherwise, you’re going to have a difficult time showing a lender that you make enough money to take on a mortgage at this time.

Tax Returns

Just because you’re making a certain amount of money at this very moment doesn’t mean that you’ve been making that amount of money consistently over the last couple of years. A lender will want to make sure that your income is consistent by browsing through your tax returns from at least the last two years in many cases.

You should either send copies of your most recent tax returns directly to a lender when applying for a mortgage or give the lender permission to obtain your tax returns from the IRS. Regardless of which approach you choose to take, what’s important is that you give a lender your tax returns so that they can verify all your financial information in one place.

Bank Statements

After looking at your credit report, your pay stubs, and your tax returns, you would think that a lender would know more than enough about your current financial situation. But most lenders will take things a step beyond that and ask you for copies of your most recent bank statements, too.

Why? Well, these bank statements will show a lender how much money you have stockpiled away in your bank accounts. They’re going to feel better about providing you with a mortgage when they see that you have lots of money saved in the bank.

Your bank statements will also give a lender some idea of where you’re getting the money to put down a downpayment on a home. They might be cautious about giving you a home loan if they see that you just had a bunch of money deposited into your account overnight.

If they see that someone seems to have given you a large amount of money to use as a downpayment on your home, they might steer clear of approving you for a home loan. Or they might ask you to provide documentation showing where the money came from before setting you up with the home loan that you need.

This will be one of the final hurdles you’ll need to clear prior to getting approved for a mortgage. You won’t have to ask yourself, “What do you need to apply for a mortgage?”, anymore once you reach this point. 

Stop Asking “What Do You Need to Apply for a Mortgage?” and Start Gathering These Documents

As you can see, applying for a mortgage is going to call for you to do more than fill out an application. You’ll also have to ask yourself, “What do you need to apply for a mortgage?”, and provide a lender with everything we’ve talked about here.

Start putting these documents together so that they’re ready to go when you apply for a mortgage. It’ll make the mortgage application process go so much smoother overall.

Find more tips for applying for a mortgage and buying a home by browsing through the other articles on our blog.