Home Financing Tips

How do you know what’s worth it to update? A couple of experts are here to help.

When a co-worker is able to buy a home, you're probably curious as to how the heck they did it.

It's no walk in the park.

Here's how to regroup.

It's worth trying.

You thought doing your taxes was a nightmare? Wait until you apply for a mortgage.

Here's what's changed about the process.

From final walkthroughs to contingency clauses.

Here's how to make it happen.

No amount of planning could have prepared me for it.

There's more to know beyond their low down payments.

Heated floors, anyone?

Here's home equity lines of credit work.

Here's what to do.

Here's how to budget for it.

Here's the lowdown on interest rates.

Here’s what you should be doing right now to protect your house.

Get the most bang for your buck by focusing on these updates.

Mortgages are already confusing without all the conflicting advice.

Hold your horses on a career change, for one.

Two finance pros share the questions you should be asking yourself before you decide.

Budget better, one day at a time.

Ever hear of debt-to-income ratio?

Because, of course, nothing is perfect!

Don't let a good market pass you by!

“Millennials may perceive home buying as more risky than previous generations because we were raised on infinite choice, frequent change, and came to age with a lot of financial volatility.”

Plus, how to know if this myth is keeping you from buying a home.

I know perfectly well that there's a point when enough is enough and a home becomes functionally obsolete... but I just can't help myself.

The more appealing a home is on the market to the majority of buyers, the higher price it may fetch.

Turns out, the 30-year mortgage is so not the norm.

That three-digit number isn't always as stable as you'd like it to be.

There are no “hacks”, per se, when it comes to reaching a perfect credit score, but there are habits you can start now that will pay off over time.

What started as seemingly random talk has literally revolutionized the way I think about expenses.

While you may think your proximity to cauliflower gnocchi and Candy Cane Joe Joe’s is draining your bank account, a new analysis says it may actually be making you money if you own a house.

Though adjustable-rate mortgages have gotten a bad rap post housing crisis, experts say they can actually make financial sense in certain situations.

We went through all the credit score-focused articles we've published in the past year and rounded up the best tips experts have shared with us. Here, the best of the best credit score tips and tricks.

It seems quite absurd now that this sealed the deal for us, and lead us to close on the biggest single purchase of our lives.

If you understand what's keeping your score down, you might be able to bounce it back up quickly.

To me, the math was clear: The longer I paid mortgage payments, the more that house was going to cost.

Finance is boring, but our Real Estate Editor, Liz, sure isn't! In our new series called Liz$plaining, Liz will guide you through all your toughest financial questions.

To keep on track with my savings goals, here are six budgeting strategies I enacted (with insight from a personal finance expert)

Potentially save hundreds of thousands of dollars and years off your mortgage with these smart payment tricks.

The countdown to buying your first home is innately defined by one thing: the balance in your savings account. Unlike car loans and the too-expensive shoes you put on your charge card, you can’t exactly buy a home with zero money down, so most people who have their sights set on homeownership begin by saving for a (sizeable) down payment.

Have big dreams to buy a home next year, but don’t know where to begin? Just because you don’t think you’ll have your down payment together for 2018 doesn’t mean you have to wait to get a jump start on the process. Here are some steps you can take to help you figure out what you’re looking for in a home, what you can afford, and how to get yourself psyched up to find your dream home while you wait.

While some folks just cannot get enough of all things Fixer Upper and Chip and Joanna Gaines, others are cooling on the couple and their Magnolia empire in Waco, Texas — including, it would appear, local home buyers. A few years ago, after Fixer Upper was well into its third season, each real estate listing for a home featured and fixed up on the show could command a bidding war, but now the same or similar inventory sits on the market, even seeing reductions in price.

“House Hunters” first premiered in 1999 when I was 12 years old. I devoured episode after episode. And since they don’t teach you these practical things in school, I thought I had learned everything there is to know about home buying from the popular HGTV show. But fast forward 18 years: I got married, then pregnant. Suddenly I was eager to trade the nearly-windowless rental basement my husband and I considered home for one we could call our own.

While you may love your barn red kitchen, a new report released today by Zillow finds that it could cost you when looking to sell your home someday. The report found that painting your front door, kitchen, or bathroom with certain color palettes can drastically depreciate your home value by more than $2,000.

After years of renting in San Francisco and Oakland, we bought a home in Walnut Creek (a small city in the Bay Area) for $545,000 in 2010—when the market was relatively slow. The house was the smallest model in a 1960s neighborhood at 1,445 square feet with three bedrooms and two bathrooms. But it sat on a spacious 9,375-square-foot lot. It was a dream cosmetic fixer. Over seven years, we made it our own.

Beloved family sitcom “Full House” ended back in 1995, but thanks to reruns and a spinoff that debuted on Netflix in 2016, fans continue to be enamored with the Tanner family. Almost as iconic as the show’s characters is the beautiful San Francisco home they lived in.

Real Talk: The chances that you could commit mortgage fraud unknowingly are minimal. The industry has become much more highly regulated in recent years to prevent issues like this. “If you’re working with a reputable lender or a bank and you’re a fairly savvy consumer, it’s probably not something you’ll come across,” say Ed Deveau, a realtor with Century 21 Mario Real Estate in Boston.

These are super useful, real estate agent-approved reasons all happy homeowners should spend time at open houses in their neighborhoods.

"You only have one credit score." True or false?

While stuck in the middle may not sound too appealing, it's exactly where you want to be when it comes to real estate.

Every year, you’re entitled to a free credit report. You can consider it a financial wellness exam of sorts as the comprehensive report details your credit activity, getting into the nitty-gritty details of on-time payments and credit limits. But, this all-encompassing report won’t just automatically arrive in your mailbox. You’ve got to ask for it. Here’s what you need to know about requesting your Annual Credit Report, and what it all includes.

If you’re under 30, buying a home might sound like a far-fetched dream: Fewer people between ages 25 to 34 are buying homes now compared to older generations at that age, according to a July 2018 report from the Urban Institute.

No doubt, credit can be confusing. Not only are there various factors that make up the anatomy of your credit score, there are also different credit scoring companies. Making things even more convoluted, achievements like paying off your student loans can actually cause a drop in your scores, plus there’s plenty of myths circulating about credit. Suffice to say, people have a lot of questions about credit.

The real estate process begins well before you make your short list of dream homes and start attending open houses—and it can end there, too, if you’re not prepared. Many people worry about saving enough money for the down payment, but there’s more to learn about the process of buying a home, requirements for loan approvals and how to overcome obstacles to home ownership. Weigh your financial history carefully, because with the right knowledge comes home-buying power.

Have you ever wondered what your real estate agent is thinking — like really thinking? Well, now’s your chance to find out. Agents have to stay pretty neutral with their buyers—there are legal protections governing some of what agents can and cannot say in order to ensure buyers are making their own decisions. But we reached out to a few real-life agents to learn the truth: What’s the one thing you wish you could tell your clients?

If you’re in the market for purchasing a home, looking into foreclosures and short sales might seem like a more affordable way into homeownership. The properties can be quite inexpensive in comparison to the traditional housing market, and if you’re a seasoned buyer, the idea of a fixer-upper might sound appealing.

In this modern era of home improvement TV, where homes go from beast to beauty in the amount of time it takes to do a quick scroll through Instagram (what? It’s called multitasking), what often gets lost is the immense amount of work and money that goes into an actual home renovation, let alone building a home. Beyond that, many of the everyday issues that DIYers, developers, and owners run into are edited out of the final cut—making things seem a lot rosier than in reality.

Understanding what affects your credit score in order to rent an apartment or secure a mortgage shouldn’t be a mystery. After all, that three-digit number is what lenders use to determine your creditworthiness, so transparency should be the name of the game. Still, credit can be complex and there’s a lot of misinformation out there when it comes to how credit works and what drives your score up (and down). Here are seven common credit myths—busted.

Turns out, millennials aren’t spending all their money on that infamous avocado toast. However, they are a lot more spendy than all other living generations. According to a new analysis from GOBankingRates, millennials spend $208.77 each day, on average—about $44 more than the average American, who spends about $164.55.

My first foray into credit freezing came in 2015, when I found out my background investigation records were stolen in a massive government hack that affected 21.5 million people. In order to get security clearance for a government job, I had to fill out a standard form with personal information including financial records, mental health history, and international travel.

Establishing credit poses a tricky Catch-22: You need credit to get credit. This can prove to be quite a conundrum if you’re trying to rent an apartment, buy a home, or, heck, simply need car insurance but don’t qualify because of a thin credit file.

Whether you’re a serious buyer or daydreaming to pass the time at work, a common part of buying a home is trying to predict your monthly mortgage payments. Is it going to end up being cheaper than your rent? Are you going to need to downsize a bit? You probably want a ballpark number before you call your mortgage lender and hire a real estate agent, so you plug the numbers into an online mortgage payment calculator.

You see homeownership in your future. But, after looking into your crystal ball—err, savings account—are you envisioning yourself at the closing table in the next month? Year? Five years? TBD depending on if you win the lotto? Fewer than four out of 10 millennials own homes, according to research from the Urban Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based social and economic policy group.

As far as credit is concerned, there are no hacks that can cause your score to magically skyrocket overnight. (Ahem, we’re wagging our fingers at schemes promising you a “new credit identity.”) But, what does exist is good, sound credit advice that advocates for responsible borrowing and takes into account the anatomy of your credit score, like utilization and payment history.