It's so important to be organised and get your finance pre-approval before your next move. Pre-approved finance will help you to shop around within your budget and manage your expectations.
When you know how much you can borrow, then you can make better decisions about how much you can afford to offer a seller for their home, and how much you'll need to earn to cover the fortnightly/monthly repayments over the life of the loan.
In general, lenders like to have all the information available to make their decision about whether and how much to lend early on.
They want to know and have evidence of who you are, what you own, owe and earn to assess you as a risk and make a judgement about how much you can borrow.
As one of the big four lenders puts it on their website: "A home loan’s a massive commitment which is why we ask lots of questions."
Getting your finance pre-approval is a smart move. It saves you time later, when you find your perfect for you property, when you have to put in an offer and you can be relatively confident that you'll be approved for finance within the shortest amount of time - making your offer to purchase more attractive than buyers who have yet to get their ducks in a row.
Sellers, as advised by their listing agents, want to be reassured that your offer is going to work out, that the finance you've said you need to purchase their property is not going to fall over and other keen buyers are not lost to other deals in the meantime. Pre-approved finance could be the difference between your offer being accepted in favour of another interested buyer's bid.
So, pre-approved finance is a positive step for both sides of the property transaction, and helps to get deals happening, especially for first-time buyers and investors who are borrowing further to add to their portfolio.