Your mortgage journey with Cashew: from first inquiry to loan disbursement

Buying a home, or refinancing the one you already own, is one of the largest financial decisions you will ever make. It is also one of the most opaque. Banks ask for documents you have never heard of, timelines blur together, and most people end up figuring it out one stage at a time.

This article walks through the full journey of a Cashew client, from the moment you first reach out to the day your loan is disbursed. By the end, you will know exactly what to expect, what we handle, and where you come in.

You can run this whole process two ways: fully digitally on your own, or with a Cashew advisor handling it on your behalf. Many clients combine the two. The walkthrough below describes the advisor-led path because it covers every stage; the digital experience mirrors the same flow, driven from your end.

The first conversation

When you first inquire, your Cashew advisor needs to understand one thing before anything else: are you taking a new loan, or refinancing an existing one? The two paths look different, and we tailor everything that follows to your situation.

If you are refinancing

We start by capturing the basics of your current loan:

• Your current bank: so we know who we are moving you away from.
• Lock-in period or clawback: many home loans come with penalties if you switch lenders too early, and some banks claw back legal or valuation subsidies they gave you upfront. We check both, so you know exactly what refinancing will and will not cost you.
• Property type: HDB, EC, private condo, or landed all open up different loan options.

If you are taking a new loan

The first question is whether you have already signed an Option to Purchase, usually called an OTP. The OTP is the agreement between you and the seller that locks in the property and price.

• If you have signed an OTP: we know exactly which property we are financing and can move straight to the loan itself.
• If you have not signed an OTP yet: we ask whether you have an In-Principle Approval, or IPA. An IPA is a preliminary indication from a bank of how much they would lend you, before you have a specific property in mind. Having one in hand before you start house hunting puts you in a much stronger position at the negotiating table.

A quick indication first: the Cashew Loan Eligibility Report

Before any bank gets involved, there is a fast way to find your footing. Your advisor will share a link to the Cashew Loan Eligibility Report, which you fill in yourself in two or three minutes. It gives you an indication of how much you can borrow, depending on the property type, considering your income, debt, age and existing property ownership among other things.

Think of it as a ballpark, not a commitment from a lender.

Getting an IPA

We strongly recommend going one step further and obtaining an actual In-Principle Approval before you start house hunting. An IPA takes a couple of days, sometimes longer, but it is a real indication from a bank, and it puts you in a much stronger position when you find a property and want to negotiate.

To prepare your IPA application, we capture:

1. Target property type: the kind of property you are looking to buy.
2. Employment type and credit history: banks assess these closely, and they shape what each lender is willing to offer.
3. Personal details: in particular for commercial properties it's important to understand if you buy as an investment property or to use yourself.

We then select the most suitable bank for your IPA based on your profile, submit on your behalf, and hand the IPA back to you once it is issued.

With IPA in hand, you go shopping for a property. When you find one and sign the OTP, you come back to us, and we pick up where we left off.

Building your loan shortlist

Once your property is locked in, we capture the final details:

• Property type and status
• Loan amount
• Your loan preferences: fixed or floating rate, lock-in tolerance, prepayment flexibility, and anything else you care about.

We then present a shortlist of loans drawn from across our partner banks, with rates, features, and total cost over the period that matters to you. You pick the one that fits.

Documents and submission

Once you have chosen a loan, the practical work begins:

1. We request the supporting documents your chosen bank will need: NRIC, income proof, CPF statements, existing loan statements, and so on.
2. We introduce you to a partner law firm, which will handle the conveyancing on your behalf.
3. We submit your application to the bank.

If the bank approves, they issue a Letter of Offer, or LO, directly to you, with Cashew copied in. The LO is the formal loan offer, with every final term in writing.

Most applications get approved on the first try. In the rare case the bank declines, we go back to your shortlist and apply with another bank.

Handover to the law firm

Once your LO is issued, we send it along with your supporting documents to the law firm we introduced you to. They take over the legal side, coordinating with the seller's solicitor for a purchase, or with your existing bank for a refinance.

At this stage, we also capture the key date:

• Completion date for a new purchase: when the property transaction completes and the loan is disbursed.
• Redemption date for a refinance: when your new bank pays off the old bank, and your new loan begins.

The wait, and disbursement

Between handover and disbursement, most of the heavy lifting sits with the law firm. The bank will disburse on the agreed date, on its own schedule. Our role during this stretch is to monitor progress and check in, so nothing slips through the cracks and you always have someone to call if a question comes up.

When the day arrives, the bank disburses, the legal transfer happens, and you either collect your keys, or wake up the next month to a lower repayment.

Why we built it this way

Cashew is a digital mortgage platform working in partnership with all major banks and lenders in Singapore. Every step above is something your advisor handles on your behalf. You provide the inputs once, and we run the process end to end. No chasing bank officers, no comparing rate sheets across five browser tabs, no wondering whether you missed a clause in the fine print.

If you are starting your mortgage journey, or thinking about refinancing the one you already have, this is what working with us looks like, from first message to the day the money lands.