Because much of the loan process consists of the underwriting process, consulting a loan officer to ensure your qualifications before the actual loan submission will reduce the processing time. By providing accurate information about your income and assets situations and the necessary supporting documents at the initial application, you will get a loan commitment from the lender with little to no prior-to-settlement conditions that much sooner.

The process from initial appication to closing will take an average of 21 to 30 days, but exact time frame will differ on each individual loan. You may close much sooner or later depending on the type of documentation required by the loan underwriter.

The first step in the Home Loan Process should be the borrower assesing their financial and credit situation. This will give the borrower a good idea of what loan amount they can afford to borrow.

Expect to wait. It may take several days to a week to get the initial response from the underwriter. The underwriter will either approve the loan as it is or, more likely, provide a list of items that need clarification or additional documentation.

Working with an experienced, knoledgable and professional mortgage agent will make the home loan process much more pleasant. Such an agent will be familiar with the vast amount of lenders and loan programs and will have a relationship with such lenders that will allow your loan file to be processed in the most expediant manner possible.

Often times inexperienced or double dipping (Realty agents trying to make a second commission by doing the loan) mortagage agents will make errors in the submission of the file to the lender which could cause the loan to be delayed or declined.

The more documentation you can have ready prior to applying for a loan the easier it will be to process. Your last 2 years W-2s or 1099, 2 years tax returns, last 2 bank statements, last 4 weeks worth of pay stubs and statements of accounts such as 401K or money market accounts would be a good start. Also when you loan officer ask you for additional documentation, that faster you can obtain this and get it to your loan officer the faster the whole process will be.

The time frame for the loan process can be greatly reduced with your loan officer using automated underwriting and at times provide immediate approvals.