Guiding Your Borrowers through a Pre-Approval

Help your clients start their homebuying journey with confidence using Realfinity’s Instant and Verified Pre-Approval options. Instant vs. Verified Approval: What’s the Difference?

Starting an Application

There are two ways for a borrower to begin:

1. Agent-Initiated: You can start the application on behalf of your client from your dashboard.

2. Borrower-Initiated: Borrowers can click “Apply Now” from your public-facing agent page, or if they already have an account, they can click "New Loan App" from the loan portal.

If your borrower is ready to move quickly or already making an offer, you can choose to bypass Instant Pre-Approval and direct them straight to the Verified Pre-Approval route.

Agent-Initiated Flow

1. Start an application through the "New Application" button on the Loan Pipeline Overview widget or from the Loan Pipeline page. From here, you can either search for an existing borrower or create a new one.
   

2. You can also create a new loan application from within the borrower details view.
   

3. Borrower receives a welcome email to get access to the loan portal.
   
   

4. Once accessing the portal, the borrower must complete the loan application stepper for the platform to automatically request the required documents. As the agent, you will no longer have to select any task set or documents.

Borrower-Initiated Flow

1. Borrowers can click “Apply Now” from a public-facing agent page, or if they already have an account, they can click "New Loan App" from the loan portal.

2. The borrower completes the brief loan application stepper and then is directed to the loan portal (this image shows a few screens from the stepper)
   

3. They receive a welcome email and land on the decision page, guiding them to go through the instant pre-approval route, or the verified pre-approval path:
   

Here is the article outlining the difference between the two: Instant vs. Verified Approval: What’s the Difference?

Instant Pre-Approval Journey

1. The borrower sees instructions guiding them to complete a short questionnaire within the Pre-Approval tab of their loan portal, asking for:

   • Purchase price

   • Down payment

   • Annual income

   • Soft credit authorization (no impact to score and no cost to borrower)

2. Once complete, they receive their Instant Pre-Approval Letter from the Pre-Approval tab in the loan portal

   1. If a borrower doesn't qualify for the Instant Pre-approval after the soft credit is pulled, they will see language guiding them to complete the Verified Pre-Approval, letting them know that they need a personalized review. As an agent, you will be able to see the reasons why a borrower was denied an instant pre-approval in their document vault.

3. They are prompted to continue to the full application for the Verified Pre-Approval

Image of client's loan portal, with new pre-approval tab

View of instant pre-approval stepper

View after getting the instant pre-approval

Verified Pre-Approval Journey

1. The borrower's portal guides them to complete the full application for their Verified Pre-Approval.

2. Borrower is routed to the complete 1003 application stepper. Information that has already been submitted from the loan application stepper is pre-populated for the borrower.

3. Once the application is submitted, the borrower can complete any remaining tasks before the file is reviewed by Realfinity’s processing team.

4. After the processing team has reviewed the information, the borrower will get their Verified Pre-Approval, and the status tracker should reflect that update in the portal.

Borrower's loan portal, guiding them to complete the verified pre-approval

View of the loan application

Images of the loan portal after the borrower completes the application for the Verified Pre-Approval (in this view, the borrower also has the Instant Pre-Approval)