Welcome to your Credit Union's Mortgage Center!!!

Yes, applying for a mortgage loan before you find a home may be the best thing you could do! If you apply for your mortgage now, we'll issue an approval subject to you finding the perfect home. We'll issue a pre-approval letter on-line instantly. You can use the pre-approval letter to assure real estate brokers and sellers that you are a qualified buyer. Having a pre-approval for a mortgage may give more weight to any offer to purchase that you make.

When you find the perfect home, you'll simply call your Loan Facilitator to complete your application. You'll have an opportunity to lock in our great rates and fees then and we'll complete the processing of your request.

Top

A credit score is one of the pieces of information that we'll use to evaluate your application. Financial institutions have been using credit scores to evaluate credit card and auto applications for many years, but only recently have mortgage lenders begun to use credit scoring to assist with their loan decisions.

Credit scores are based on information collected by credit bureaus and information reported each month by your creditors about the balances you owe and the timing of your payments. A credit score is a compilation of all this information converted into a number that helps a lender to determine the likelihood that you will repay the loan on schedule. The credit score is calculated by the credit bureau, not by the lender. Credit scores are calculated by comparing your credit history with millions of other consumers. They have proven to be a very effective way of determining credit worthiness.

Some of the things that affect your credit score include your payment history, your outstanding obligations, the length of time you have had outstanding credit, the types of credit you use, and the number of inquiries that have been made about your credit history in the recent past.

Credit scores used for mortgage loan decisions range from approximately 300 to 900. Generally, the higher your credit score, the lower the risk that your payments won't be paid as agreed.

Using credit scores to evaluate your credit history allows us to quickly and objectively evaluate your credit history when reviewing your loan application. However, there are many other factors when making a loan decision and we never evaluate an application without looking at the total financial picture of a customer.

Top

An abundance of credit inquiries can sometimes affect your credit scores since it may indicate that your use of credit is increasing.

But don't overreact! The data used to calculate your credit score doesn't include any mortgage or auto loan credit inquiries that are made within the 30 days prior to the score being calculated. In addition, all mortgage inquiries made in any 14-day period are always considered one inquiry. Don't limit your mortgage shopping for fear of the effect on your credit score.

Top

There is no charge to you to have your credit report accessed or to submit your application online.

Top

Yes, you can borrow funds to use as your down payment! However, any loans that you take out must be secured by an asset that you own. If you own something of value that you could borrow funds against such as a car or another home, it's a perfectly acceptable source of funds. If you are planning on obtaining a loan, make sure to include the details of this loan in the Expenses section of the application.

Top

We take full advantage of an automated underwriting system that allows us to request as little information as possible to verify the data you provided during your loan application. Gone are the days when it was necessary to verify every piece of data collected during the application. The automated underwriting system compares your financial situation with statistical data from millions of other homeowners and uses that comparison to determine the level of verification needed. In many cases, a single W-2 or pay stub can be used to verify your income or a single bank statement can be used to verify the assets needed to close your loan.

Top

Generally, the income of self-employed borrowers is verified by obtaining copies of personal (and business, if applicable) federal tax returns for the most recent two-year period. However, based on your entire financial situation, we may not need full copies of your tax returns.

We'll review and average the net income from self-employment that's reported on your tax returns to determine the income that can be used to qualify. We won't be able to consider any income that hasn't been reported as such on your tax returns. Typically, we'll need at least one, and sometimes a full two-year history of self-employment to verify that your self-employment income is stable.

Top

In order for bonus, overtime, or commission income to be considered, you must have a history of receiving it and it must be likely to continue. We'll usually need to obtain copies of W-2 statements for the previous two years and a recent pay stub to verify this type of income. If a major part of your income is commission earnings, we may need to obtain copies of recent tax returns to verify the amount of business-related expenses, if any. We'll average the amounts you have received over the past two years to calculate the amount that can be considered as a regular part of your income.

If you haven't been receiving bonus, overtime, or commission income for at least one year, it probably can't be given full value when your loan is reviewed for approval.

Top

We will ask for copies of your recent pension check stubs, or bank statement if your pension or retirement income is deposited directly in your bank account. Sometimes it will also be necessary to verify that this income will continue for at least three years since some pension or retirement plans do not provide income for life. This can usually be verified with a copy of your award letter. If you don't have an award letter, we can contact the source of this income directly for verification.

If you're receiving tax-free income, such as social security earnings in some cases, we'll consider the fact that taxes will not be deducted from this income when reviewing your request.

Top

Generally, only income that is reported on your tax return can be considered when applying for a mortgage. Unless, of course, the income is legally tax-free and isn't required to be reported.

Some lenders may offer a stated income program, which means that you can be qualified for a loan based on the income you state rather than that which can be verified. Usually these programs require larger down payments and offer interest rates that are substantially higher than regular mortgage rates. We do not offer stated income programs at this time.

Top

The closing will take place at the office of a title company or attorney in your area who will act as our agent. If you are purchasing a new home, the seller may also be at the closing to transfer ownership to you, but in some states, these two events actually happen separately.

During the closing you will be reviewing and signing several loan papers. The closing agent or attorney conducting the closing should be able to answer any questions you have or you can feel free to contact your Loan Facilitator if you prefer.

Just to make sure there are no surprises at closing, your Loan Facilitator will contact you a few days before closing to review your final fees, loan amount, first payment date, etc.

The most important documents you will be signing at the closing include:

HUD-1 Settlement Statement

This document provides an itemized listing of the final fees charged in connection with your loan. If your loan is a purchase, the settlement statement will also include a listing of any fees related to the transaction between you and the seller. If this loan will be a refinance, the settlement statement will show the pay off amounts of any mortgages that will be paid in full with your new loan. Most items on the statement are numbered according to a standardized system used by all lenders. These numbers will correspond to the numbers listed on the Good Faith Estimate that will be provided in your application package. This document is also commonly known as the closing statement and both the buyer and seller must sign this document.

Truth-in-Lending Statement (TIL)

This document provides full written disclosure of the terms and conditions of a mortgage, including the annual percentage rate (APR) and other fees. It is exactly the same as the TIL that you received immediately after your initial application, except it has been updated to reflect the final rate and fee information. Federal law requires that all lenders provide you with this document at closing.

Note

This is the document you sign to agree to repay your mortgage. The note will provide you with all of the details of your loan including the interest rate and length of time to repay the loan. It also explains the penalties that you may incur if you fall behind in making your payments.

Mortgage / Deed of Trust

This document pledges a property to the lender as security for repayment of a debt. Essentially this means that you will give your property up to the lender in the event that you cannot make the mortgage payments. The Mortgage restates the basic information contained in the note, as well as details the responsibilities of the borrower. In some states, the document is called a Deed of Trust instead of a Mortgage.

If your loan is a refinance, Federal Law requires that you have three days to decide positively that you want a new mortgage after you sign the documents. This means that the loan funds won't be disbursed until three business days have passed. The closing agent will provide more details at the closing.

Top

If you own rental properties, we'll generally ask for the most recent year's federal tax return to verify your rental income. We'll review the Schedule E of the tax return to verify your rental income, after all expenses except depreciation. Since depreciation is only a paper loss, it won't be counted against your rental income.

If you haven't owned the rental property for a complete tax year, we'll ask for a copy of any leases you've executed and we'll estimate the expenses of ownership.

Top

Generally, two years personal tax returns are required to verify the amount of your dividend and/or interest income so that an average of the amounts you receive can be calculated. In addition, we will need to verify your ownership of the assets that generate the income using copies of statements from your financial institution, brokerage statements, stock certificates or Promissory Notes.

Typically, income from dividends and/or interest must be expected to continue for at least three years to be considered for repayment.

Top

Information about child support, alimony, or separate maintenance income does not need to be provided unless you wish to have it considered for repaying this mortgage loan.

Top

Typically, income from a second job will be considered if a one-year history of secondary employment can be verified.

Top

First, you'll complete our online application.

The application will ask you questions about the home and your finances and takes less than 20 minutes to complete.

Your application will then be submitted for an instant lending decision. After completing your application, a Loan Advisor will contact you to introduce himself or herself and to answer any questions you may have during our normal business hours. Your Loan Advisor is a mortgage expert and will provide help and guidance along the way. If your request wasn't approved online, he or she will ask you for any information required to make a decision about your loan.

Once your Loan Advisor has discussed your application and provided you with the required disclosures, you will be asked to pay an application fee to begin the processing of your mortgage loan. This deposit will be credited towards your closing fees and will mitigate the cost of your credit report and appraisal.

If you are purchasing a new home, the Loan Advisor will also contact the Real Estate Broker or the seller so that they'll know whom to contact with questions.

We'll send you an application package and prepare your loan for closing.

The application package will be sent Priority Mail and will contain papers for you to sign. We will also provide a list of items required to complete the processing of your application.

We'll order the appraisal from a licensed appraiser who is familiar with home values in your area. Depending on your finances and the loan amount requested, different types of appraisals are used. Sometimes the appraiser will need to view the home. Sometimes they are able to do their evaluation from the street.

Title insurance will be necessary. If you're purchasing a home, we'll work with the real estate broker or seller to ensure the title work is ordered as soon as possible. If you are refinancing we'll take care of ordering the title work for you. We'll use the title insurance to confirm the legal status of your property and to prepare the closing documents.

We'll contact you to coordinate your closing date.

After we receive the application package back from you along with the appraisal and title work, we'll contact you to schedule your loan closing. If you are purchasing a home, the listing agent will schedule the closing with the selling real estate agent, the seller, Mortgage Center LLC and you.

The closing will take place at the office of a title company or attorney in your area who will act as our agent. A few days before closing, your Loan Facilitator will contact you to walk through the final information so that there won't be any surprises at closing. In most cases, the final closing figures will be available 24 hours prior to closing.

That's all there is to it! You're on your way to the most convenient home loan ever!

Top

Having changed employers frequently is typically not a hindrance to obtaining a new mortgage loan. This is particularly true if you made employment changes without having periods of time in between without employment. We'll also look at your income advancements as you have changed employment.

If you're paid on a commission basis, a recent job change may be an issue since we'll have a difficult time of predicting your earnings without a history with your new employer.

Top

If you were in school before your current job, enter the name of the school you attended and the length of time you were in school in the "length of employment" fields. You can enter a position of "student" and income of "0."

Top

Unfortunately, if you are purchasing a home, we'll have to use the lower of the appraised value or the sales price to determine your down payment requirement.

It's still a great benefit for your financial situation if you are able to purchase a home for less than the appraised value, but our investors don't allow us to use this "instant equity" when making our loan decision.

Top

Gifts are an acceptable source of down payment, if the gift giver is related to you or your co-borrower. We'll ask you for the name, address, and phone number of the gift giver, as well as the donor's relationship to you.

Prior to closing, we'll verify that the gift funds have been transferred to you by obtaining a copy of your bank receipt or deposit slip to verify that you have deposited the gift funds into your account.

Top

If you're selling your current home to purchase your new home, we'll ask you to provide a copy of the settlement or closing statement you'll receive at the closing to verify that your current mortgage has been paid in full and that you'll have sufficient funds for our closing. Often the closing of your current home is scheduled for the same day as the closing of your new home. If that's the case, we'll just ask you to bring your settlement statement with you to your new mortgage closing.

Top

Congratulations on your new job! If you will be working for the same employer, complete the application as such but enter the income you anticipate you'll be receiving at your new location.

If your employment is with a new employer, complete the application as if this were your current employer and indicate that you have been there for one month. The information about the employment you'll be leaving should be entered as a previous employer. We'll sort out the details after you submit your loan for approval.

Top

Generally, a co-signed debt is considered when determining your qualifications for a mortgage. If the co-signed debt doesn't affect your ability to obtain a new mortgage we'll leave it at that. However, if it does make a difference, we can ignore the monthly payment of the co-signed debt if you can provide verification that the other person responsible for the debt has made the required payments, by obtaining copies of their cancelled checks for the last six months.

Top

Any student loan that will go into repayment within the next six months should be included in the application. If you are not sure exactly what the monthly payment will be at this time, enter an estimated amount.

If other student loans are reflected on your final credit report, which will not go into repayment in the next six months, we may need to ask you for verification that repayment will not be required during this time period.

Top

If you've had a bankruptcy or foreclosure in the past, it may affect your ability to get a new mortgage. Unless the bankruptcy or foreclosure was caused by situations beyond your control, we will generally require that two to four years have passed since the bankruptcy or foreclosure. It is also important that you've re-established an acceptable credit history with new loans or credit cards.

Top

An installment debt is a loan that you make payments on, such as an auto loan, a student loan or a debt consolidation loan. Do not include payments on other living expenses, such as insurance costs or medical bill payments. We'll include any installment debts that have more than 10 months remaining when determining your qualifications for this mortgage.

Top

Completing our online application is as easy as 1-2-3! We'll ask you questions about your personal finances and the home. You'll probably know all the answers off the top of your head.

The application is broken down into sections and you can track your progress through each section at the top of each screen. It should take less than 20 minutes to complete the application.

Move through the application by using the back and next arrows at the bottom of each screen. Don't use the back and next button on your browser while you're completing the application.

We use exciting new technology in order to provide you with the most convenient online mortgage application ever! As you answer some of the questions, you'll note that questions below may change, disappear or new questions are added instantly. We don't ever want to waste your time asking for information that isn't important in your situation, so we evaluate the information we need based on your answers. Isn't that what amazing member service is all about?

If you need additional help answering a question, click on the question mark at the end of the question for more information.

If you don't have time to complete the application right now or if you need to gather information before you finish, we'll save the information you have completed. When you're ready to finish, return to the site and enter your User ID and password to continue.

Top

Information About Our Site Security

We use leading-edge technology to ensure that all customer information is 100% safe. We protect our customers by using a combination of security measures that are among the best in the e-commerce industry.

Encryption

All customer information is encrypted using Secured Socket Layer (SSL) technology supported with digital certificates provided by GeoTrust, Inc. This means that your loan application information is safe and secure as it travels over the Internet.

Firewall Security

We use leading firewall and network security technology to protect our internal computer systems from unauthorized access. Our customers can be confident that their personal information is completely safe and private after they apply.

Top

Important Notice About Your Personal Information Mortgage Center LLC Privacy Notice

At Mortgage Center we want you to know that the privacy and confidentiality of your personal information is a top priority. We are required by law to provide you with this notice in order to inform and explain to you how we collect, use, and safeguard your personal financial information. If you have any questions about this disclosure or what it says, please contact a customer service representative at 1-800-454-0356.

Information We Collect About You

We collect nonpublic personal information about you from the following sources:

Information from you on applications and other forms for products and services;
Information abour your transactions with us, our affiliates, and others; and
Information from consumer reporting agencies to assess your creditworthiness.
Information About You We Share
We do not disclose any nonpublic personal information about our customers or former customers to anyone, except as permitted by law as authorized by our customers.
How We Protect Your Information
We restrict access to nonpublic personal information about you to only those employees who have a specific business purpose for accessing and utilizing this information. Our employees are trained in the importance of maintaining confidentiality and member privacy. We maintain physical, electronic and procedural safeguards as part of a comprehensive risk management system that complies with federal regulations to protect against anticipated threats or hazards to the security of your information and to protect against unauthorized access and use of the information.

Top

One of the first things we'll do after your loan is approved is discuss the items required for closing that the broker or seller might be responsible for. Though there is some variance across the country, generally the broker is involved in ordering the title policy or scheduling the appraiser's inspection of the home and coordinating the closing. We'll make sure that everything necessary has been taken care of so that your closing happens as efficiently as possible.

The broker may also want to know that you have taken the steps to obtain financing and that your loan request has been approved. We'll only provide basic information about your loan approval. It's really up to you to decide what details you want to share.

Top

The year you purchased your home and the price you paid for it are provided to the appraiser to assist them in finding data about your home through local public records. In addition, if you purchased your home in the last year some of the loan programs we offer require us to compare the original purchase price to the current appraised value so that any large increases in value can be justified.

If you don't remember the exact year and purchase price of the property an estimate will work just fine.

Top

If you're not sure exactly how much the annual real estate taxes are for the property you are purchasing, an estimate will do. The appraiser and title company will provide us with the exact amount later. If you do need to estimate the amount, shoot for the high side just to be sure.

Top

Some situations are just more complicated than others and require a "personal touch" before an approval can be provided. The fact that we weren't able to approve your request online doesn't mean that we can't provide the financing you are looking for. One of our experienced Loan Facilitators will be assigned to your file and will do a complete review of the information you provided.

We also know how difficult it is to wait for a decision and we will contact you as soon as we can.

If for any reason we aren't able to provide the financing you have applied for, part of the Loan Facilitator's job is to come up with other options you may want to consider. It's our goal to offer choices to all of our members!

Top

A pre-approval letter can be very comforting to any seller you might be negotiating with. It tells them that if they accept your offer, they won't have to worry that you won't qualify for the financing you need to buy their home. You may provide it to your real estate broker or to sellers - the decision is yours!

Top

Some situations are just more complicated than others and require a personal "human" before a pre-approval can be provided. The fact that we weren't able to approve your request on-line doesn't mean that we can't provide the financing you are looking for. One of our experienced Loan Facilitators will be assigned to your file and will do a complete review of the information you provided and will contact you as soon as possible.

Mortgage Center
20300 Civic Center Drive Suite 403
P.O. Box 2171
Southfield, MI 48076
1-800-353-4449

Equal Housing Lender