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Documents You’ll Need When Buying Your First Home

In today’s world, buying your first home has gotten incredibly expensive. Your mortgage could be for a hundred thousand dollars (or more), so, your lender will not simply take your word for everything and hand over the money. Instead, they will want to review various documents pertaining to your income, employment, and other areas before approving your loan. If you are preparing to buy your first home, here are some documents you can expect to need.

Pay Stubs

Since your mortgage payment will be for quite a bit of money each month, your lender will want to verify you make enough money at your job to handle the payment. Thus, you will need some pay stubs that show at least 30 days of income. If your employer does not provide paper copies, arrange to have digital copies available for your lender.

Employer Contact Information

Even after you have pay stubs proving your income level, a lender will also want to have documentation regarding your recent employment history. To meet this requirement, you should provide them with an employer contact information document, where you have listed your employers and their contact information. While it’s not a given the lender will contact your employers, chances are they will.

Tax Documents

When you are meeting with your real estate attorney, as they are looking over contracts and other paperwork associated with your pending home purchase, always take their advice and gather together at least two years of tax returns to show your lender. In addition to the tax returns, try to also include copies of your W-2 forms as well. Should you be able to include more than two years of tax returns, this can work in your favor, since this will demonstrate financial stability on your part.

Bank Statements

Last but not least, any lender who is preparing to approve a mortgage for you to buy your first home will want to take a look at your bank statements. This allows them to see how much money is being deposited into your account each month, and to also see how much money is leaving your account each month. Along with your bank statements, you may also want to include credit card statements, since this will let the lender gauge your debt-to-income ratio.

If you take the time to gather together these important documents and make sure you work closely with your real estate attorney from start to finish, you can emerge as the owner of your first home.

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