Get approved with Acre

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 work to identify customers who are on solid financial footing with an efficient, online process.  

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What approval criteria is Acre looking for?

Residents will meet the following high-level criteria: 

• Credit score in the prime or super-prime range (as defined by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau) 
• Funds to pay for 5% of the home's value, which we call the “value share” 
• A housing budget less than ~⅓ of monthly income
• No adverse actions, such as an eviction or foreclosure, in the last 5+ years
  

Unlike the typical mortgage lender approach, 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 friends or family contributing to the Acre value share, variable income from 1099 employees, and similar situations. You can schedule time with an Acre team member to share your situation and see if Acre is a fit for you.

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. 
• Acre uses this to understand your goals 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 connect to your bank. We can only see the data you explicitly give us permission to access (how Plaid handles data). 

How long does approval take?

The approval process should take customers ~15 minutes assuming you have access to your bank’s site. 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 had 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 act just as quickly. 

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