Good credit, but not best rates??

[ShanetheMortgageMan]

Pre-qualified & pre-approved are two different terms.  Pre-qualified is just when you talk to a loan officer about all of your particulars and they determine that you would likely be approved.  Pre-approved is when a loan application is filled out, credit is checked, you provide income/asset documentation, the application & disclosures are signed/dated/initialed, and an underwriter actually checks everything over.  They will come back and issue a formal credit & income pre-approval, listing the remaining conditions that need to be satisfied before they'd fund the loan... usually those items are: purchase contract, title report, appraisal & evidence of homeowners insurance.  After you get the formal pre-approval the loan officer writes you a pre-approval letter that would accompany your offer on a home.  This makes it easy for you to submit offers with confidence because if there is a home you like and don't want to miss out on, you are already there... no need to worry about setting your financing up.  Pre-approvals are usually good for 120 days (that's how long the credit report is good for).  Plus when you are pre-approved and provide the pre-approval letter with your offer, sellers are much more likely to take you seriously. 

You don't need to go through the entire pre-approval process with each lender to find out what type of interest rates & fees, if you are knowledgeable about your situation, finances, credit, etc. you can just talk to a loan officer over the phone to get that info.  I do advise you to spend 30-60 minutes with each loan officer discussing what to expect in the process, how things are handled, who does the communication, how many people will you be working with, etc.  Many of my initial conversations run 70+ minutes because I like clients to understand pretty much everything about the loan process, good faith estimate, time frames, etc.