Mortgage Application Time Line Process:

As we move forward in the process of approving your mortgage and closing your loan smoothly, we believe it is important to know what has to happen to accomplish this goal on time. Making sure your loan closes smoothly on time and you are thrilled with the service level we provide is our primary goal at Everist Mortgage. We believe setting proper expectations and having great communication is vital.

The mortgage lending industry and process is highly structured and geared toward making sure the loan is "saleable" to the secondary market – i.e., Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, H.U.D., V.A., etc. These end-sources who purchase the loans from the various lenders require that the loans meet their guidelines.  The lenders (Wells Fargo, Chase, Bank of America, Washington Mutual, National City, Countrywide, etc) who ultimately provide the money for you at closing handle hundreds if not thousands of individual loans at once, so it is sometimes hard to compress these timelines or “jump to the front of the line”. Therefore we strive to be as organized and prepared as possible to get your loan submitted early.

 Please allow us to cover the timeline that has to happen so that everyone can properly plan and understand.  At Everist Mortgage, we call this our "backward calendar exercise".  It will be very helpful in understanding why the loan process may seem to take a long time (dates are examples only and does not reflect a current loan process):

• Closing day! This is the goal we are all shooting for when everything is signed and the transaction is finished
•  One Business Day before closing:
  This is the latest we try to get final numbers nailed down and a final HUD-1 Statement to all parties for review
•  Two Business days before closing:
  This is the day we must get closing instructions to the title company and loan documents so they can prepare the HUD-1 Settlement statement. It is rarely correct the first time it is prepared, and must be corrected several times.
•  Four Business days before closing:
  This is the day we must order loan documents from the attorneys so they have time to prepare them and get them to the title company. It typically takes 48 hours for preparation of loan docs.
•  Five Business days before closing:
  This is the day we want to have our "Clear to Close" from the lender. This means all prior-to-closing conditions have been cleared and we are authorized to order loan documents. 
•  Seven Business days before closing:
  This is the day we want to have the loan come out of final underwriting. Final Loan approvals typically have closing conditions attached to them. It takes approx 24 hours to gather any additional requested information from the borrowers and get it back to the underwriter. Then it takes another 24 hours to clear the conditions and get our "Clear to Close".
•  Nine Business days before closing:
  This is the day we want to submit your complete file (including appraisal, updated financial documents title commitment, tax cert.(s), survey, etc) to the underwriter for final loan approval. It typically takes 48 hours for them to review and underwrite the loan.
•  Twelve to Thirteen Business days before closing:
  This is when we need to order appraisal, title commitment, survey, payoff, etc. Because it takes a few days for the appraiser to do the analysis, title company to do the records search or surveyor to send a crew out to your property, we must order these items early enough to get them back in before Nine days before closing.  If we have time, we like to make sure the option period is up before this.

As you can see, there are a lot of steps involved in processing a mortgage loan. These steps are sequential - one leads to the other. Therefore, it is important that the borrowers provide the requested financial documents and other items requested by your loan officer and loan processor as soon as possible.

During peak times, like at the end of a month or during a low interest rate environment, the lender, title company or various other parties to your transaction may be experiencing high volume and therefore may take longer than what is shown above. In certain circumstances it is important to close a loan very quickly. If you are in this situation, we do have lenders and sources where we can make things happen more quickly – we have closed loans within 5-7 days of initial loan application. However, these situations are deemed “rush” or “emergency” cases, and require going with a lending source that specializes in quick turnaround. That may mean that your interest rate is slightly higher than the other sources that take longer.

We hope that this exercise is helpful to you in understanding what is happening on your loan. As we mentioned before, our long-term relationship with you and your future referrals depend on your experience here being a good one.

We want to earn your trust, long-term relationship & referrals. If you have any questions about this timeline and how it applies to you, please give us a call at 512-346-4663