What not to do after you apply for a mortgage

Your approval is not final until it funds

Lenders re-pull credit and re-verify employment shortly before closing. Whatever you did in between shows up.

People assume that “approved” is a state you reach and keep. It is a snapshot of a file, and the file gets checked again. A soft credit re-pull days before closing is standard, and so is a verbal verification of employment on the day.

The seven things that undo an approval

1. Buying a car. The single most common one. A $650 payment can move your debt-to-income ratio enough to fail the file outright, and it lands as both new debt and a hard inquiry.
2. Opening a credit card, including the store card offered at the furniture shop for the house you have not closed on yet.
3. Closing a credit card. Counter-intuitive, but it cuts your available credit and can push utilisation up, which moves the score down.
4. Changing jobs — even for more money. A new role restarts the employment verification and, if it changes you from salaried to commission or self-employed, it can end the file.
5. Large deposits you cannot document. Underwriters need the paper trail on anything unusual. Cash deposited at a branch is the hardest of all to source.
6. Moving money between accounts right before closing, which turns a simple statement into an afternoon of explanations.
7. Paying off a collection without asking. It sounds responsible; it can re-date the account and move the score the wrong way.

What you should do instead

Nothing. Keep your finances boring until you have the keys.

• Keep every account exactly where it is, and keep paying every bill on time.
• Save every statement, pay stub and tax document — you will be asked twice for at least one of them.
• Answer underwriting questions the same day. Files stall on unanswered emails more than on anything else.
• Buy the furniture after closing. Not the day before, not “on approval”. After.

Why this matters more in Florida

Because your file has less slack here than it did where you came from.

Property tax and insurance are part of the payment the lender qualifies you on, and in Florida they are a bigger share of it than almost anywhere. Insurance alone on a $400,000 home runs around $9,000 a year on a standardised policy. A file that was comfortable at your old state’s numbers can be tight here — which means a new car payment has less room to hide.