Congratulations your offer has been accepted and you are now officially “in contract.” Within the next 30 days you will have your keys to your home and your Santa Rosa Mortgage will be in place.
That’s down the road, right now there’s several things we need to be focused on to avoid a course correction in your escrow. Follow these simple tips and you will be well on your way to being a happy homeowner.

Following is a list of helpful mortgage tips to help you navigate through the home loan process as well as escrow.

Do not change jobs or change job’s status. This may sound obvious, but it’s very important that you stay at your job during the escrow process. If an opportunity presents itself… wait. You don’t want to put yourself in position of jeopardizing your ability to obtain the home loan and subsequently the house you are in contract to purchase. You also want to make sure that you don’t change jobs status, in other words, do not change going from being an employee to being self-employed or vice versa. You also don’t want to make this change if you are thinking about getting a home loan to purchase a house down the road.

Do not make changes to your credit. Don’t go out and buy furniture for that house that is not closed yet on credit cards, again this seems pretty obvious, but it is very important that you do not change your credit card balances during escrow. You also do not want to close credit cards which could negatively impact your credit score. The only credit that should be run during the escrow process is the one that’s being run by your lender whom you’ve hired to help you obtain that Santa Rosa Mortgage.

Do not purchase anything till you have keys. This one goes without saying. Do not go out and purchase high ticket items or anything that results in a monthly debt payment. Your mortgage lender will require a certain amount of funds to be in your bank account during the escrow process, you don’t want to show money randomly leaving your bank account when you are trying to obtain a Santa Rosa Mortgage.

What else can I do to navigate through the home loan process?

Do not switch lenders. If you switch your mortgage lender 10 days into escrow for example you could be jeopardizing your transaction because the new lender you have hired may not be able to perform in 20 days if you have a 30 day contract. Pick the mortgage lender you feel the most comfortable with and stick with them as long as they are local and upfront. An .125% lower in rate with another lender is not worth jeopardizing the whole transaction let alone your earnest money deposit. Switch lenders if you must during the preapproval phase only.

Do not transfer money around. Let’s say all of your paycheck goes into ABC checking account. Stop right there! If all of your money goes into ABC account, use ABC account for proof of funds to close, do transfer funds from ABC account into another account. Why? It’s simply because all paper trails must be sourced. It is much easier to provide one bank statement with proof of funds to close then to provide two or three statements documenting the entire paper trail.

Be mindful these easy mortgage tips and you will be well on your way to closing your escrow early if not on time. Remember you can always contact me via e-mail scott.sheldon@naf.com. I can help you navigate through the home loan process for a Santa Rosa Mortgage.