Are mortgage lenders taking a look at your LinkedIn profile?
Confronted with excessive mortgage charges, 6.62% for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage on the time of writing, and soaring home prices, lenders are turning to social media websites like LinkedIn to raised perceive debtors.
Kevin Leibowitz, president and CEO of Grayton Mortgage, advised Realtor earlier this month that whereas the lender doesn’t have “an official course of” for wanting by a borrower’s social media accounts, they might nonetheless examine unofficially.
“It’s useful to take a look at LinkedIn profiles through the utility course of,” Leibowitz advised the outlet. “It may give a clearer image as to the job historical past, description, size of employment, locale, and so on.”
The knowledge could be essential as a result of “typically, a borrower does not present a full image of what they’ve performed for the previous couple of years,” Leibowitz defined.
He said that lenders may use LinkedIn to fill in gaps in employment and create an entire profile of the borrower.
So, whereas lenders primarily examine financial institution statements, credit score stories, and tax returns when assessing a borrower’s historical past, their notion of a borrower is also influenced by social media platforms like LinkedIn.
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What ought to debtors do to maximise their probabilities of getting a mortgage? Mike Olson, a senior underwriter on the lender Second Road, advised Realtor.com that each element on LinkedIn ought to align with what’s written on a mortgage utility. This implies the identical job titles, places, and dates.
He additionally really useful refraining from writing posts “that might elevate purple flags,” like posts about monetary stress or job loss.
The median price of a house offered within the U.S. within the closing quarter of 2024 was $419,200, up from $338,600 within the final quarter of 2020.
