Things You Should Never Throw Away …

General Nathan Lawrence 8 Jun

There’s always the saying reduce, reuse, recycle but that’s not really what this post is about. We are more interested in looking at the things you should never throw away in order to get your mortgage approved. Part of the mortgage approval process is providing documents to confirm the details in your mortgage application. It’s nice to say that you make a million dollars a year but the lender is going to require proof that is actually true! Here are some key documents that the majority of lenders require to approve you for a mortgage:

  • Notice of Assessments – The information you receive in the mail from the government regarding your tax returns. You should have at least 2 years of these on file.
  • T1 Generals – Especially if you are self-employed but sometimes lenders will request these for further income details. These documents break down your income and are what you submit to the government for your taxes.
  • Paystubs – Usually you will want to start saving these for a few months when you know you are in the market to buy a home, most lenders will require your most recent one.
  • Property Tax Bill – If you are planning to refinance your home.
  • Separation Agreements – You should always keep a copy of this in your files.
  • Yearly Mortgage Statements – Once again if you are planning to refinance or if you plan to sell and buy a new home.
  • ROE or Last Paystub – If you move jobs it’s always a good idea to keep a copy of your last paystub or your Record of Employment.

 

Now don’t tell your mortgage broker that you’ve thrown these away! And rather than having these documents in a cluttered pile we thought we’d share some really cute filing cabinet ideas with you that we found on Pinterest!

Your Credit Report

Mortgage Tips Nathan Lawrence 1 Jun

In the first blog post in this particular series, we went into detail about managing credit payments and how your payment history impacts your credit score.  Managing your monthly debt payments is extremely important and is often times underestimated by consumers.

Almost equally as important as managing your monthly credit payments, is also your ability to manage the outstanding balances that you carry on your credit cards and debt.  This particular aspect of managing your debt really applies to anything that would be considered a revolving debt:

Revolving Debt can include:

  • Credit Cards
  • Line of Credits
  • Home Equity Lines of Credit.
  • Any debt that allows you to use the credit, pay it off and then use it again.

The trick when it comes to managing the balances on revolving debt is knowing that you need to keep the outstanding balance below 65% of the limit.  The credit system is designed to look for red flags that indicate consumers might be at risk of defaulting on their debt.  One of those red flags is how much of your available credit limit you have used up.   If you have a few credit cards and all of those credit cards are maxed out, then it indicates to the credit agencies that you might be relying on your credit to manage your daily expenses and obligations.