Although there is no 100% guarantee, your best bet is to ask for a pre-approval letter. To issue a preapproval, the lender will check the buyer’s full credit report, look for any discrepancies or potential red flags, verifiy his or her employment status and income, and then, if everything looks OK, pre-approve the buyer for a specific loan amount.

Now, there is another piece of paper with a similar-sounding name, called a “pre-qualification” letter. To get “pre-qualified” the buyer only verbally tells the lender what his/her income and debts are. The lender then checks a par tially complete credit report and nothing else. Since nothing is verified, and the full credit report is not checked, the “pre-qualification” letter is pretty meaningless. Therefore, insist on getting a pre-approval letter. Sure, it’s not bulletproof, but it’s the next-best thing to being offered cash.