The listing says you’ll have to be cross qualified with their ‘preferred’ lender before your offer is accepted.

You want the house. But it was a pain gathering all the documentation for the pre-approval you already have. You don’t want to jump through all those hoops again, especially with another credit pull. Especially with someone you don’t know. God only knows what’s going to happen with all your personal information.

Here’s the insiders scoop on how to deal with this reality.

30% to 50% of deals don’t close

Most often deals fail because a lender said someone was pre-approved, but they failed to do their job and that buyer doesn’t really qualify.

To avoid that, the listing agent asks/requests/demands having a lender they trust to review your file to ensure you’re really pre-approved.

If you were selling your home and someone said they were pre-approved from ‘Crazy Bob’s online VA loan Emporium and Smoke Shop’ would you take your house off the market and trust that pre-approval? Or would you ask someone you trust to review the buyer to make sure the deal has a real chance to close first?

What choice do you have?

If you want to buy that house, you pretty much don’t have a choice. You can try to say no, but more than likely you’ll need to step through the cross qualification process.

Where you do have a choice is if you use that in-house lender, or stick with whoever you were previously pre-approved with.

Doesn’t this give the seller an advantage?

Yes.

The seller might find out you can afford more house. Or that you can barely afford the house. Both of which could be used in negotiations to the seller’s advantage.

One alternative is to ask to do the cross qualification – after – the deal is accepted. That still gives the seller time to kill the deal if there’s a problem, but doesn’t undermine any perceived negotiations. It’s likely the listing agent will stick to their normal policy, but you can at least ask.

How to easily deal with the cross qualification

1. Have your lender do all the legwork for you
   They already have all your paperwork and can share it with your permission. That should include the credit report they already have, so you won’t get hit with another inquiry.
2. Make the ‘preferred’ lenders job easy
   They are likely reviewing multiple offers, so you want yours to be the one they easily say YES to. That means your lender should thoroughly package your file with an amazing cover letter explaining how they’ve already reviewed everything and you’re the best borrower ever.
3. Don’t share your contact information
   Their job is to double check your file, not start calling you and hounding you to use them.

Will the ‘preferred’ lender try to ‘earn’ your business?

While some agents just want to have a 2nd opinion they trust, many will push you hard to use their ‘preferred’ lender.

Those lenders will equally gun hard to ‘earn’ your business. They will push, prod, bully, and even lie. They aren’t worried about earning your loyalty or trust, just getting your deal ($$).