I love collecting information from clients — said no one ever.
But here’s the truth: gathering the right information is crucial for something as significant as a home loan.
The good news is that you can streamline the process using a comprehensive mortgage questionnaire. In this post, we’ll walk you through the questions that should be in your home loan questionnaire (and yes, we’ve even included a free template to get you started).
Let’s dive in!
Content Snare is a simple tool that helps you collect information, multimedia, and files from clients. Send our questionnaire template to your clients as-is, or customize it as you see fit.
Lenders and financial institutions don’t have to use a home loan questionnaire, but it comes in handy if you’re frequently gathering information from potential borrowers.
| Note: Despite subtle differences, most people use the terms “home loan” and “mortgage” interchangeably. We’ll do the same in this post for the sake of simplicity. |
A well-designed questionnaire practically eliminates back-and-forth communication between the mortgage lender and borrower by standardizing the data collection process. That’s the most important advantage, but you’ll notice other benefits:
We can add a few more benefits to the list, but it’s already clear that home loan questionnaires are a must for agile lenders. Now it’s time to see the actual questions that should be in your template.
1. Full name
2. Date of birth
3. Current address (street, city, state, zip code)
4. Phone number
5. Email address
6. Citizenship
7. Position/job title
8. Employer name
9. Employer address
10. Employer contact information (phone, email)
11. Employment duration
12. What is your gross monthly income?
13. Do you have any additional income sources?
If yes, please specify the type and amount for each income source.
14. Employment type (full-time, part-time, self-employed, contract)
15. Do you anticipate any recent changes in your current employment status?
If yes, please provide details.
16. What is your total annual income (all sources included)?
17. What are your total monthly expenses?
18. Do you have any savings and investments?
If yes, please provide details.
19. What is your current credit score?
Please upload the official credit score report.
20. Do you have any assets such as real estate, vehicles, collectibles, and similar?
If yes, please provide details.
21. Do you have any outstanding loans or debts? These can be other mortgages, personal loans, credit card debts, medical bills, and similar.
If yes, please provide details for each (debt type, amount, lender name).
22. Do you have any co-signers or joint debtors?
If yes, please provide details.
23. What is the minimum monthly payment associated with your loans?
24. Do you have any collateral to secure your current debts?
If yes, please provide details.
25. Property address (street, city, state, zip code)
26. Type of property (residential, commercial, industrial)
27. Year built
28. Purchase price
29. Estimated property value
30. Property size (square footage or acres)
31. Property features (garage, pool, yard, etc.)
32. Down payment amount
33. Preferred mortgage type (fixed-rate, adjustable-rate, other)
34. Desired loan term (10 years, 15 years, 20 years, 25 years, 30 years)
35. What is your maximum comfortable monthly payment for the mortgage?
36. What are your preferences regarding the interest rate for the mortgage?
37. Will you be applying with a co-borrower?
If yes, please provide details (name, address, email).
38. Are you eligible for any special mortgage programs (first-time buyer, veteran, etc.)?
39. Are there any specific mortgage features you are interested in, such as prepayment options, interest-only periods, or similar?
40. Have you been pre-approved for a mortgage?
If yes, please provide details.
41. Do you have any other mortgage preferences or requirements?
If yes, please provide details.
Now that you know which questions to add to your questionnaire, you’ll need a proper form builder to create a template. Our suggestion is to use Content Snare, a data-gathering tool that will make mortgage applications a simple process for you and your clients.
For one, it comes with a ready-made mortgage questionnaire template. This is an excellent starting point as you can quickly customize the template or even send it to your clients as-is.
“Content Snare helps me mitigate or avoid tasks that I deeply dislike: Having to chase after, beg, cajole, babysit, sift through multiple emails to find what I'm looking for, re-explaining what I need from a client, and spending so much time emailing.”
Quote source: G2 user reviews
Form instructions are the second benefit — you can add explanations and examples to every section or question to assist borrowers in providing the right information. If that’s not enough, your clients can post comments or ask questions in the questionnaire itself, so you can provide additional instructions.
Content Snare offers lots of other form-building features, but we don’t want to brag about it too much — you can test it and see the benefits yourself. Just sign up for free and enjoy your two-week trial.
Dražen Vujović is a journalist and content writer. More importantly, he is a father of two and a long-distance runner.
