Should You Follow These 4 Dave Ramsey Tips to Speed Up the Home-Buying Process?

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If you want to buy a home more quickly, Dave Ramsey recommends taking four steps, including getting pre-approved for a loan. Find out more. 

If you’re thinking about buying a house, you should be aware that it could take you quite a bit of time to do it. Not only do you need to find the perfect property, but you also need to get an accepted offer and make sure you get the right mortgage loan.

If you’re eager to be in your new home yesterday and you don’t want to wait weeks or even months for these steps to unfold, you may want to consider Dave Ramsey’s advice for speeding up the purchasing process. Here are four suggestions the finance guru made, along with some thougths on whether or not following this advice makes sense.

1. Pay cash for your house

Ramsey’s first proposed plan for buying a home more quickly is to avoid a mortgage loan altogether.

“Want to put the home-buying process into overdrive? Pay for it with 100% cash. That’s right — no mortgage. Think about it: If you don’t need a mortgage, you won’t have to deal with all the time-sucking aspects of nailing one down. No need for an approval process, loan paperwork or anything else like that,” Ramsey said.

This indeed would make things a whole lot faster since mortgage lenders can take weeks or even months to review all the details and get to closing. If you don’t have a lender, you can also choose to skip time-consuming steps like a home appraisal (which lenders usually require).

However, there are huge downsides to paying cash for a home. You’ll be tying up a ton of money in an illiquid asset, for example. You’re usually better off getting a mortgage and keeping more money invested, where it can earn higher returns.

Of course, you could pay cash and then do a cash-out refinance later once you’re in the house. This would mean getting a mortgage loan later on. However, refinance loans usually have higher rates than loans to buy a home, so this isn’t a perfect solution.

2. Get mortgage pre-approval

Ramsey’s next suggestion is more practical. He advises getting pre-approved for a home loan if you are going to get a mortgage.

“From contacting a mortgage company to getting the letter, pre-approval takes a few days. But the extra time usually pays off later by helping make contract to closing go a lot faster,” Ramsey said.

He’s right about this. Getting pre-approved is also often a requirement before sellers will allow you to look at their homes. And you won’t be able to get an offer accepted on a home in most cases without showing you’ve been pre-approved.

3. Gather your paperwork

When applying for a mortgage, you must provide a lot of financial documentation. That’s why Ramsey rightfully suggests gathering all of these details if you want to make the buying process faster.

“If you’ve been pre-approved by a mortgage company, you’ll already have all your pay stubs, bank statements and tax returns at hand. But keep them close and make sure they’re as recent as you can get. You’ll need them again during the mortgage application process,” he suggested.

It can be helpful to keep digital copies of all of these documents in a folder on your computer so you can send them to mortgage lenders easily.

4. Get your closing costs ready

Finally, Ramsey’s last tip is to be prepared for closing costs. These can be very expensive, adding up to around 2% to 5% of your loan amount. You’ll want to make sure you have this money ready so you can bring it to closing without delay.

By following these tips, you can streamline the mortgage application process and make sure you’re able to get the keys to your new place as quickly as possible.

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