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Move Money Around
Buying a home is easily one
of the five most important purchases you will make in your lifetime. Besides the considerable investment that you
have to make to buy a home, there is also how long you will live in your home
and also the considerable statement you will make by owning a home. Home ownership means that you will own an object
that will say more about who you are than any words that come from your
mouth. The type of home as well as the
way that you decorate it will give people a window into your soul and mind.
However, before you get to
express yourself through a home there is the whole process involved in buying a
home. Buying a home can be a time
consuming process and it should be considering how important your home is going
to be during your lifetime. There is
the considerable amount of time you will have to devote to going to open houses
and taking one on one tours of homes that you have identified as having some
interest in. Of course, once you’ve
finally identified the home of your dreams that is suitable to where you are in
your life, all things are over. Right?
Unfortunately this isn’t
always the case. Finding a home that
you want to buy is significantly easier than actually paying for it. In many ways, obtaining the financing necessary
to buy a home is much more difficult than finding a home that you want to buy. Unless you have the savings to pay for a
home at your disposable, your home ownership aspirations will not be achieved
until you acquire financing through a loan source.
Regardless of where you receive your home loan, there are a number of requirements
that your loan source will impose on your path to buying a home. These requirements are imposed as a way for
the loan source to protect their financial interests while ensuring that you
are serious about your intent to buy a home.
Therefore there are a number of actions that you just don’t do before
buying a home due to its effect on financing.
One such act is move money around.
Although the act of moving money around may seem to you as something that is
purely your business and should have no effect on obtaining financing, the fact
of the matter is that this is not the case.
Moving money around will, at best, cause you headaches because your loan
source will demand that they receive the paper trail of your transactions, and,
at worst, will cause your loan source to take away their financing from you.
Take this example of Aaron Brim, a supervisor at a food manufacturing company
in Iowa. Aaron Brim had found a
three-story, five-bedroom home located on the outskirts of Des Moines that was
perfect for his growing family. A
financially responsible man, Aaron Brim decided that the best way to make the
home buying process go faster was to consolidate all of his savings into one
account. Unfortunately, Aaron Brim had
already gone through the process of qualifying for a loan and one night
received a frantic call from his loan source.
It seems that his loan
source had just detected Aaron’s transactions and was confused and even a
little bit angry. Although Aaron tried
to calmly explain that the reason why all of these financial changes took place
among his accounts were to make it easier for the lender to see that he had the
necessary financial means required to obtain the home loan. However, the lender didn’t see it this way
and warily told Aaron to come to his office tomorrow for a meeting.
The meeting between Aaron
and his lender was not a pleasant one for either side. While Aaron Brim tried to reiterate his good
intentions, the lender dismissed his rationale. To be fair to the lender, he had good reasons to be upset about
Aaron’s actions. When Aaron offered to
reverse all of his transactions, the lender was appalled. This was because the lender is responsible
for properly documenting the source of their client’s funds as a requirement
for loans and Aaron’s act of moving money around has made things significantly
difficult for him.
To finish up this story,
Aaron’s financing problems were finally sorted but after much time and
unnecessary frustration had past. Aaron
Brim and his lender had grown jaded, which made their future dealings less
pleasant. However, Aaron did eventually
acquire that three-story, five-bedroom home but had to work much harder than he
had to if he didn’t move money around.
The impact of moving money around, as Aaron’s experience will illustrate, makes
things much more difficult for a prospective homebuyer’s loan source. Although this may warrant little concern for
some homebuyers, the fact of the matter is that in many ways your loan source
is the most important person you will have to deal with while trying to buy a
home.
To understand why moving money around before buying a home is not the best of
ideas, it is important to understand the process in which a home loan is
approved. Considering the vast amount
of money that is involved in home loans, it is understandable to see why
lenders are concerned, almost to the point of paranoia, when it comes to
analyzing their client’s financial actions.
After you have submitted
your loan package for approval, a lender will review your loan application and
examine a variety of factors before approving your loan package. Common concerns among lenders are the source
of funds that will be required for the down payment and closing costs attached
to purchasing a home. A down payment is
the part of the purchase price of a home that the buyer does not finance with a
mortgage but pays in cash. Closing
costs are the expenses that are incurred by the home seller and the homebuyer
related to fees and services involved in the transfer of property
ownership. These two groups of fees are
not covered in a mortgage payment and are the responsibility of the
homebuyer. However, they also serve as
a sign to your lender that you are financially able to handle the monthly
mortgage payments that you will have to pay for over a course of many, many
months or years.
As a way to measure your
financial ability and the reliability of your financing sources, your lender
will often ask that you provide statements for the last two to three months on
all of any of your liquid assets as well as your financial accounts. These will include:
·
checking accounts
·
saving accounts
·
money market funds
·
certificates of deposit
·
stock statements
·
mutual funds
·
401K accounts
·
retirement accounts
Therefore, when you move
money around your various accounts, you are no longer making financial
decisions based on your own discretion.
Your lender will also view these financial movements between your
accounts and will immediately raise red flags if they notice any large deposits
or withdrawals within your accounts.
The thorough nature that a
lender will employ while they analyze your financial accounts is based on the
requirements of their job. In order to
eliminate potential fraud and to ensure quality control, your lender is
required to completely document the source of all funds before approving a
loan. Therefore, moving money around,
regardless of your intention, will make it significantly difficult for your
lender to properly document the source of your funds.
Although moving money around
your accounts will not necessarily mean that you will lose your loan financing,
it will mean that the process of acquiring a loan will be considerably
slower. The mortgage underwriter, who
is the person who approves loans, will usually ask that you provide a complete
paper trail of all the withdrawals and deposits for all of your accounts. A tedious process, you will be required to
produce such seemingly inconsequential financial data as cancelled checks and
deposit receipts to the mortgage underwriter.
Failure to produce these documents will usually mean that your loan
package will be rejected and that you will need to find a new source for home
financing.
This information should not preclude you from moving money around your accounts
if it is absolutely necessary for you to do so. However, you should keep all financial documents that detail all
of your transactions as a way to prepare for future consultations with a
mortgage underwriter. Considering how
much emphasis lenders place on financial consistency, moving money around is
the way to go if you want to make buying a home harder than it already is.
Considering how much emphasis loan sources place on a consistent financial
record among their prospective clients, it should go without saying that if you
shouldn’t move money around that you should also not change banks while you are
in the midst of applying for a home loan.
By keeping a relatively stable financial history during the home buying
process, you will be saving yourself many headaches that come when you make a
number of financial changes in your accounts.
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