Just would like to hear from your experiences. If lets say I sign agreement to buy house on 9th March, how long would it take before the bank approves it? One week?

This is dilemma I am in. My company is retrenching people but the names are coming in slowly by the months. I could be safe, I could not. No specific set of criteria is set for firing people. I have been thinking of purchasing a house for some time now and was waiting for the price of houses to be lowered. I understand that getting a bank loan is one of the hardest step and the step that can forfeit my 10% deposit if it does not go through.

So now I am fighthing against time, thus the Q. I am taking the chance that I may still be in work by end of April. Many thanks for any advice.

Why sign the agreement before securing a bank loan?
For fast banker and bank, it takes maximum 3 days (full documents)
For slowpoke, it can take u a month or even 2....

And again, why sign the agreement first?
If it is a subsale, maybe talk to the owner? Ask him to wait till you secure a loan.

so we must not to sign s&p agreement before loan approve ?

i sign my booking agreement already, and now applying for loan..

not sure about steps to buy house..

any tips ?

This post has been edited by dvinez: Mar 1 2009, 03:23 PM

you can add a term to your booking receipt that deposit will be refunded if you fail to obtain a bank loan...usually loan takes a week maximum if full set of docs are presented...Its imperative you try many banks (usually around 5 to 6) to ensure you succeed..

Another thingsign you SPA if you sure your bank loan approved...Better lose 3%then 10% rite?

It is not that we must not sign SnP before being approve.
It is more like a precaution step.
Just incase the loan are not approved or what...
After we sign SnP, there is a clause where the money need to be paid within certain timeframe.

What if you signed today, the clocks start to tick.
Your loan application have some issue and it get drags to a month before being approved. Then the bank takes another 2 months or more to disburse the money? You'll get charge interest according to the SnP.

So it is BETTER to sign SnP after getting the loan approved if possible.


A simple flow is as below.

Apply loan
Wait for approval
Sign Letter Offer and Loan Agreement and watever MRTA stuff if you choose to take it.
Bank will process your loan. i.e
- transfer file to lawyer
- wait for the lawyers to get those stuff stamped etc
- lawyer returns the case to bank
- banks then prepare to disburse the money (if it is refinancing, the bank will need to talk with the original bank on the balance, wait for the old bank to finally willing to release the documents needed etc)
- banks finally disburse the money to developer or vendor

^^ Wow, thanks for the advice bro. But just curious, wouldn't the bank ask to see the S&P first? What if the bank insist on an S&P first? How do I proceed then?

tell them it is a 'pre-sale' loan application lo
some banks will still process it, if it is approved, they will request the SnP from you (signed or unsigned) before they produce the Letter Offer

I got mine approve in less than a week.