Now that we’ve negotiated an accepted offer and gotten in contract, it’s time to prep the board package. Because most board packages will request financing documents, and because post-COVID loan confirmation is taking longer, our first priority is staying on top of your mortgage banker to make sure they’re acting purposefully. I’ll take the lead on this, but the more people bugging your banker the better! We can expect mortgage commitment about one month after going into contract, and we’ll make it our goal to have the rest of the purchase application fully prepared be the time we receive commitment.
Set a 30 day goal for completion from the day contract is signed
Two issues take the most time: reference letters and financial statement. I’ll send you specific instructions to forward to your references on letter preparation, and you’ll want to request those letters immediately, in case any of your references are slow in returning correspondence. This is especially true if we need a landlord reference letter. The financial statement will be documented using figures from your most recent account statements for all cash, investment, and retirement accounts. This underscores the importance of getting our package together quickly: if the package takes more than 30 days to compile and more recent account statements are released, we’ll have to collect the new statements, update our financial figures, and cause ourselves a lot of extra trouble!
What’s important to take to heart in the board package preparation process is that it will likely feel invasive, information will likely be requested that is redundant, and we need to supply everything the board is asking for. Once board package is submitted, typical turn-around time to board interview is three to four weeks.
(BrickUnderground on prepping YOUR DOG for the coop board interview!)
Throughout this time, your banker will need to update your loan pre-approval. You’ll want to continue to stay in close communication with your them, so as not to jeopardize your loan commitment status. A rate lock may be appropriate in certain cases here as well. Most importantly, you’ll want to refrain from any action that might change your credit worthiness: opening additional lines of credit, making large purchases, loaning anyone any money, changing jobs, etc… this is the case from contract-signing to closing.