Imagine this: you’ve found the perfect house, and feel lucky because the interest rates happen to be at an all time low. So you submit your mortgage loan application, and then…wait. The next week, interest rates go up a point, but you’re still waiting. Another point would mean a significant amount in the monthly payment you will pay, and you groan when you open the newspaper and find that indeed it has gone up again.

Can this be avoided?

Luckily, there are some steps that you can take to speed up the process of your loan application! Here are a few suggestions.

First of all, if you haven’t yet started shopping for your new home, you should consider shopping for a home LOAN before the home. It is possible to be approved for a mortgage loan before you ever find your home, and this will accomplish two things. First of all, it will allow you to lock in an interest rate, which will completely eliminate the “waiting” game mentioned above. In addition, if a seller sees that you are pre-approved, he will be more likely to negotiate with you because he will view you as a “serious” buyer.

If you’ve already found your dream house and still need to get a mortgage loan approval, there are some steps that you can take to speed up the process.

You should be sure that anytime the mortgage company calls you, that you return their call as soon as possible, and then provide whatever documentation or data they need. Remember, if they call you for something that generally means that they won’t be able to move forward on your loan until they receive it.

Next, you can make things easier for the mortgage company by providing them with a file containing all of the information that you know they will need—organized and easy-to-read. For example, you should include your tax returns, income statements, employment records, credit reports, explanation of bad marks on your credit reports, bank and investment records, the contract for your new home, all bank records, and cancelled checks or other evidence of your current mortgage or rental payments. This will save the time of the mortgage company having to ask you for all of this paperwork.

Finally, it won’t hurt to call and check the progress every now and then. Mortgage lenders process thousands of loan applications, and you can make sure that yours doesn’t sit on the bottom of the stack by calling attention to it with a phone call.