On The Road To Buying A House: Pre-Approval For A Mortgage Loan

I really don’t have anything new to report as far as the progress towards getting pre-approved for a mortgage loan.  When we went for the first meeting with the lender on November 1, we asked how long it would take to get our pre-qualification letter. The answer was “In most cases, you will have your pre-approval in just a couple of days.” Well, it seems we are not your everyday mortgage applicants.

For one thing, we work seasonal jobs. And those seasonal jobs are with the U.S. Government. And you know how long it takes to get paperwork flying with the feds.  The mortgage representative we are using send the forms to both of our supervisors last week. But then there was a federal holiday. Yesterday, I called Fabgrandpa’s supervisor and left a message telling him we need for him to fill out that form ASAP. He is being transferred to a National Park in Michigan, and his last day for work at the North Rim is Friday. He called me back later in the day, and filled out the paperwork while I was on the phone with him.

The second thing is, since we live fulltime in an RV, we change our address frequently. We have been living and traveling in an RV for going on 12 years. We are hoping that any potential lender can see that we have a good credit score, pay our bills on time, and would be a good credit risk in spite of our lifestyle.

One other thing that has slowed this process down is that the day we went to our first meeting, a work crew was digging on the main road through town, and cut a  major communications cable, and the internet service to the office was down for three days. While that was not the fault of the mortgage company, it still added some days to the process.

Now, as far as I can tell, the mortgage company has everything they need to make a decision. It has been two weeks since our first visit, so I hope we hear something soon.  We can’t even go to look at houses until we get that letter from the lender.