Question about pre-approval for new construction

[Anonymous]

I am interested in doing an FHA loan for a new construction home. The builder allows buyers to put down only $2000 upfront if you get pre-approved through their preferred lender. My question is do we have to have ALL the monies we need for down payment and closing costs in the bank before the lender will do a pre-approval? We still need to save a bit but I know we will have everything by the time the building is completed and it's time to close on the loan. Any folks out there with experience that can help me understand how it might work? I don't want to be premature on applying for the preapproval but I'd love to start the process soon if possible.

[live-n-learn]

I don't  believe you need to have all the money up front if you're  doing a new build via FHA. But verify this with the lender. From what I understand  they're  more interested in what is in your bank account  60 days prior to closing. I guess it really depends on how fast or slow your home will be built. 

[Anonymous]

It depends on the lender and how much they trust you. 

[ezdriver]

I am a sales counselor with a national home builder. We require preapproval with our lender in order to sign a purchase agreement. AT signing we require an earnest money deposit [not to be confused with downpayment for mortgage purposes] and it varies from $3,000 to $10,000. The EMD is kept in escrow and is returned to the buyer at the closing table.

A downpayment is how much money the buyer is bringing to the closing table and that determines how much mortgage money your lender will deliver to the closing table. The EMD can be used for downpayment as it remains the buyer's money. At our discretion, we will allow a buyer to sign a purchase agreement and allow them to save for the downpayment over the 5 months of construction time. It is always preferable that the downpayment money is already sitting in an account up front ... but that is not always the case. It reallly depends on the builder whether or not the downpayment has to be already available at preapproval time.