Thought about buying a home, and want to know how much you can afford?  The first step in purchasing a home is finding out how much you can afford. Not only will a pre-approval help you with your home search, having a mortgage pre-approval prior to finding a home will also help with your negotiations with the seller once you find a home. Seller's who know the buyer is pre-approved to purchase their home are more comfortable with taking the home off the market and accepting an offer. Fill out the following form and you can get pre-approved over the phone by a local mortgage lender.