Buying a new home is an exciting time.  It could be the most important purchase you will ever make and you may require financing to make your dream home a reality.  Midstate is an experienced lender and will make the process of applying for your mortgage as smooth as possible.

As your lending institution, we will assign you a loan officer.  The loan officer will be your guide through the mortgage process, from application to the final funding of the loan.  The officer will answer questions you may have, keep you advised of your loan’s status and help you organize any final information required by Midstate.  You can expect the mortgage process to take about three to six weeks from start to finish.

There are four basic steps to the mortgage process.  They are i) interviewing and qualification; ii) processing; iii) underwriting; and iv) closing.  These steps are explained in more detail in the following sections.

Step 1:  Interviewing and Qualification
Your loan officer will lead you through the preliminary qualification questions.  Your answers will help the officer determine your loan needs and recommend which of the many loan programs available would best suit your purposes.  Two ratios provide the information necessary for this analysis:  Housing-to-income ratio and Total debt-to-income ratio (see glossary).  PLEASE LINK TO GLOSSARY PAGE

Once the preliminary qualification is completed, you can start the actual application.  Comprehensive information is required about yourself and the subject property for the application.   It is imperative that you give truthful and complete answers to ensure that your loan application and processing goes as smoothly as possible.

You will probably be asked to provide supporting documentation such as bank statements, etc.  You will also need to sign documents for verifications that will be needed during processing.  The loan officer will give you a Good Faith Estimate of the settlement charges for closing your loan, a Truth-In-Lending disclosure that provides the APR (cost of the mortgage as an annual rate) and estimated payments and a settlement booklet.  The settlement booklet explains in great detail the fees involved with a mortgage loan.

Step 2:  Loan Processing
Your loan file will then go to a loan processor who will make sure all the information is accurate, complete and meets certain marketing requirements.  The loan processor will order credit reports, appraisals and verifications.  When the file is complete the processor will send it on to underwriting.

Step 3:  Underwriting
The underwriting process determines whether or not your loan will be approved.  The loan committee will review all your documents for completeness, accuracy and legibility.  The loan file is then analyzed for four important factors: collateral, capacity, character and capital.

After the loan committee reviews all the factors, it will make the decision to approve, approve with conditions or deny the loan request.  If the loan is approved, the loan package is signed, dated and sent off for closing.  You will receive a confirmation of the approval with a written loan commitment.  If the loan is denied, you would receive a written notice of denial.

Step 4:  Closing
In the final step of obtaining a mortgage, closing documents are prepared for the final transaction, signatures and recording.  Your mortgage is now official and the title of property passes to the buyer.  You now are the legal owner of the property and have a legal obligation to repay the mortgage debt.