Get approved with Acre

by
Irene Tollinger
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How does Acre approval work?

At Acre, we align our incentives with our residents - our shared goal is to maintain and improve the home's condition so that it is in the best position to appreciate in value. We use an efficient, online process to identify customers who meet our financial criteria. 

What approval criteria is Acre looking for?

Residents will meet the following high-level criteria: 

  • Credit score of 660+ 
  • Funds to pay for 5% of the home's value, which we call the “value share” 
  • An income level that is 3 times the Acre monthly payment
  • No adverse actions, such as an eviction or foreclosure, in the last 5+ years


Acre has a proprietary approval method that gives us the freedom and accuracy to consider other types of financial contributions. This includes gift funds from family contributing to the Acre value share, variable income from 1099 employees, and similar situations. 


Acre’s approval is one step. Unlike a lender, we do not have a pre-approval followed by a more in depth process before closing. Acre gives approved customers a maximum purchase price based on their income and assets. 

You can schedule time with an Acre team member to learn more.

What information does Acre collect?

Step 1 - personal information: 

  • Acre asks for name, address, date of birth, social security number, and a few other fields.
  • Acre uses the information to run a soft credit check, which will not affect your credit score.

Step 2 - financial overview: 

  • Acre asks for the types of income you receive (W2, 1099, and more), your monthly housing budget, the amount you plan to put toward your value share, and where money for your value share comes from. You can select multiple types of income.
  • Acre uses this information to only prompt you for relevant documents and where to look for funds in the next step. 

Step 3 - Source of funds:

  • Acre asks you to log into your bank(s) website via Plaid* in order to collect:
    • Current balance: to verify funds available to pay for the value share. These funds can also be in an investment account including (stock or other liquid assets).   
    • Deposited income: in order to review this, you’ll need to link to the bank where your employer/business deposits income.
  • Acre uses this information to calculate the home purchase price we can approve you up to.  


*We use industry leader Plaid to securely connect to your bank. We can only see the data you explicitly give us permission to access (how Plaid handles data) and cannot affect or access your account later.

How long does approval take?

Completing the approval process should take customers ~15 minutes assuming you have access to your bank’s site and your documents.  Start by creating an Acre account and then go to “get approved.” 

After you submit, we’ll let you know if we need additional information. Once we have everything, we turn customer approvals within 24 hours. For example, we have residents who submitted their approvals on a Monday and were under contract by Wednesday. We know the market moves fast and are here to help you respond just as quickly. 

Advantages of Acre approval

Our process offers an advantage for self employed people and entrepreneurs. We look closely at variable income to potentially offer them more buying power. Also, because Acre is not a loan, it will not change your debt to income ratio. Customers report this allows them to pursue small business loans and meet other financial goals.

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