I really need your help: Did I get the loan or not?

This is a little complicated, so bear with me.

I am trying to purchase a home. After receiving a pre-qualified letter from a bank, I applied for a mortgage. I was recently turned down for the loan (too low income), but was told by my loan officer at the bank that I may be approved for a different, FHA loan.

I received a phone call from her today with what I thought was news telling me that I was approved for the loan. She mentioned the word "commitment letter" and said I'd have to sign more paperwork, because it was an FHA loan. She said congratulations, I said I was relieved.

But a few hours later, my loan processor at the bank left me a message telling me that the appraiser needed to change some paperwork because it is an FHA loan, and "then it will be sent back to underwriting for review."

Did I get the loan or not? After receiving that message, I immediately thought that maybe I somehow misunderstood my loan lady, and she was really telling me that I was re pre-approved for the FHA loan.

I didn't think I had to be pre-approved again; I already was in the first place! Now I'm really confused, and have no idea what to think. It's Memorial Day weekend, so both of them have already left until Tuesday.

What do you think?? Thanks so much!
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I have switched many clients from Conventional to FHA. There are additional forms with an FHA loan so I think that is what your LO is talking about. Also, an FHA appraisal is a little bit different from a Conventional one. An FHA case number was ordered, & the appraisal was re-done on a different form. Sounds like the appraiser is FHA approved so you are in luck. And yes, it would have to go back to an UW to be underwritten again because the program has been changed. It could be your LO ran it through DU as an FHA loan & got an Approve/Eligible so that is what she was telling you. It sounds like you are good to go.

An LO you can't talk to over the weekend? That doesn't apply to me. I am available for my clients. If I am out of town someone covers for me. I would never let my clients hang like you are.
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First pre qualifying and pre approved are not the same... pre qualifying isn't worth the paper its wrote on. You can NOT be approved for a loan until it comes back from the underwriter, the underwriter has the final say in whether or not you are approved...plain and simple. But I wouldn't worry too much about it.
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Willow you have the loan, but FHA has standards for the house. They are verifying that the house itself passes FHA guidelines.

In a very short version of the standards: If you can't just move right on in the house will not pass.
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You don't have it done, but I would say 95% of loans go through when you get the commitment letter.
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Based on your discussion of events, understand that pre-approved only qualifies you for a loan amount, no different than buying a car instead of a house. The FHA loan is a special program from the government therefore additional paperwork was necessary. The appraiser is the person that qualifies the value of the home itself. If the appraised meets the loan, then you go to the next step. The "underwriter" is generally the final person that approves everything to show that it is all in order. If he/she approves, then you are home free. Overall, you are likely approved. Good luck.
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You probably have conditional approval, meaning that if all the information they have about your employment, income, etc is verifiable, you're approved.

Underwriting guidelines for conventional loans are different than for FHA or VA or reverse mortgages...so the underwriter has to see it again, but if all the conditions are met, you'll be approved.

In the past, loan decisions were made by a committee. Lenders would have loan committee meetins once a week or at some other interval, and review all the applications that were taken since the last meeting. They discussed the various characteristics of each application and made a group decision. It frequently took a few weeks for this to happen. They didn't make the decisions until the employment, income and assets were already verified.

Today, most loans are decisioned by desktop underwriting. A program reviews the data entered, and makes a decision based on the guidelines it's been given. Usually someone other than an underwriter reviews this decision, makes sure there's nothing unaccounted for by the desktop underwriting, and writes out the conditions. Frequently something is found that wasn't addressed by desktop. One thing that comes to mind is desktop can't tell if you have owned rental property long enough to qualify for that income to be considered. Your rental property might not have a mortgage on it, so there's not enough data. There are other things too, but I just can't think of any right now. Anyway, if it's conditionally approved, the not-underwriter-reviewer will generate a conditional approval notice, telling you what you have to provide (pay stubs, bank statements, etc) to make it an actual approval.

Does that help at all, or is it just too many words?