Home Loan Center

Welcome to the Northwoods Bank Home Loan Resource Center

Find information and answers to all of you Home Buying, and Refinancing Questions.

Buying a Home

Steps to Buying a Home

• Getting Started - Tips to help you enter the real estate market with confidence
• Calculating What You Need - How much cash do you need to buy a home & how to invest for the down payment
• Finding a Home - Helpful ideas to help you find the home of your dreams
• Making an Offer - Process of making an offer & negotiating a deal
• Finding a Loan - Learn about the loan option available & which ones fit your specific needs
• Final Steps - Learn about insurance, the closing process, & what to do after your loan closing.

Home Buying Checklist:
Our home buying checklist will help you familiarize yourself with the steps in buying a home and track your progress as you go through them.

• Estimate what you can spend on a home
  Sizing up your finances early can prepare you to find the best home loan. Use a few standard guidelines to gauge your home buying power:
• Estimate two and a half times annual income.
• Calculate 28% of before-tax income for monthly housing debt (mortgage payments, property taxes, insurance and any maintenance costs for a co-op or condominium).
• Determine how much money you’ve saved for a down payment and closing costs.
• Get a rough estimate of how much you can afford now with our How Much Can I Borrow? calculator.
• Start gathering relevant financial papers needed for your application and be one step ahead of the game. (Our Mortgage Checklist can help.)

Get pre-approved
A pre-approval is a written commitment from a lender to give homebuyers a specific loan amount and loan type. You can get pre-approved before or after you have found a home to buy. However, many buyers find that they have increased negotiating clout if they are already pre-approved when they conduct their home search.
Check your credit report, if needed, to make sure there are no surprises.
Apply for pre-approval.

Find the right home
House hunting can be fun and exciting, but it also involves some homework:

• Investigate neighborhoods and schools.
• Conduct a cost-of-living comparison if planning to buy in a different geographical area.
• Prioritize desired home features.
• Choose a real estate professional.
• Make an offer.
• Negotiate a final price.
• Have the home inspected.

Close the purchase
If you’ve followed the steps above, these final stages of the home purchase should go smoothly:

Apply for a mortgage formally to obtain a mortgage commitment letter. For homebuyers with pre-approvals, this will be a formal application. Northwoods Bank offers two ways to apply: by phone or in person.

Close the purchase. A real estate agent, settlement agent, or attorney generally walks homebuyers through the process of meeting contract contingencies and scheduling settlements.