The home-buying television shows make it look easy. Find a home. Put in an offer. Poof. Done. But in the real world, there are a few hurdles to clear between the seller accepted your offer and congratulations, you’re a homeowner now. One of those hurdles you’ll need to clear before you can officially own your […]
8 Things You Should Know About Making an Offer on a Home
It’s one thing to idly scroll through online house listings. It’s something else entirely to make a real offer to buy a home, even now when the purchase process has taken on an entirely new form combining online shopping, social distancing open houses, and video consultations with realtors and mortgage providers. Making an offer on […]
What Homebuyers Should Know About Home Appraisals
Home appraisals are hugely important when it comes to your mortgage. Once a seller has accepted a homebuyer’s offer, a home appraisal is on the short list of final hurdles to clear before closing day. If you haven’t bought or sold a home before, you may not have ever given home appraisal a second thought. […]
Using Retirement Funds for Your Down Payment
Saving for retirement is important for your future. But for people hoping to buy a home soon, watching the balances on their retirement accounts grow while trying to come up with a down payment can be a little frustrating. Why can’t I just use the money I’ve saved for retirement to buy a house? A home can […]
What Is the Morty Pre-Approval? How Is It Different?
A mortgage pre-approval letter in-hand takes the stress out of house hunting. Instead of wasting your time looking at homes out of your price range—or worrying about whether you qualify for a mortgage at all—being pre-approved for a mortgage means you can conduct your home search, and eventual purchase, confidently. But not all mortgage pre-approvals are created equal. Morty’s […]
Buying a Home as a Freelancer
More than 57 million Americans earned at least some of their income freelancing last year, including 47% of Millennial workers. If you’re one of the millions of workers who won’t be getting a W-2 from a traditional employer next year, we’ve got good news. Getting a mortgage and buying a home without a traditional salaried […]
Everything You Need to Know About Mortgage Insurance
Putting together enough money for a down payment on a home isn’t easy. For many people—and especially for many first-time homebuyers—scraping together the traditional 20% down payment may feel next to impossible. Luckily, would-be homeowners without loads of money for a down payment have other options. Mortgage insurance makes homeownership possible for folks who don’t […]
8 Ways for New Homeowners to Prepare for Natural Disasters
Being prepared for emergencies and natural disasters is important for everyone, of course. Fires, floods, and other natural disasters can happen anytime and impact entire communities. As a homeowner, your emergency preparedness to-do list is a bit different than it was when you were a renter. If you’re new to the homeownership game, we’ve got […]
Decluttering Before Your Next Move
The secret to a low-stress moving day? Decluttering your home—and your life!—before you move. Think about it: the less stuff you have to move, the less trouble it’ll be to move it. The good news? You don’t need to commit to a minimalist aesthetic to reap the benefits of decluttering. Taking stock of your possessions […]
Thinking About Buying an Older Home? Four Things to Consider First
New home construction has picked up in some parts of the country. But currently, more than 50% of American homeowners live in homes built before 1980. In the Northeast and the Midwest, the age of the average home is even higher. The average owner-occupied home in Washington, DC is 75 years old. For new and […]
First-Time Homebuyers: 7 Ways to Save For Your Down Payment
Renting isn’t exactly flushing your money down the drain, of course. Paying rent gives you somewhere to live and a place to store all your stuff. And that’s important. But unlike renters, homeowners get the benefit of housing while also building equity in an asset that adds to their long-term wealth and financial well-being. And […]
Five Spring Home Maintenance Tasks for New Homeowners
The sun is shining. The birds are chirping. The weather is finally warming up. If you’re a homeowner, spring heralds not just longer days and warmer temperatures, but a host of home maintenance tasks. And if it’s your first spring as a homeowner, it might be tough to know just where to start. But don’t […]
Here’s What a Cash-Out Refi Could Mean For You
Homeowners can refinance their mortgages at any time of year, of course. But for a variety of reasons, many homeowners looking for a cash-out refinancing of their existing mortgage do so in the spring. There’s a reason cash-out refinancing peaks in the springtime. And it’s not because there’s some mysterious connection between spring showers, budding […]
3 Steps For Buying Your First Home in a Competitive Market
The refrain has been the same now for several years: In most American towns and cities, there are more would-be homebuyers than there are homes on the market. And the competition for homes feels especially fierce as the millennial demographic – who account for 43% of all homebuyers in 2022 – have “aged into the […]
Four Things First-Time Homebuyers Fail to Notice at Open Houses
For many folks, hopping from one open house to the next is the most fun part of buying a home. Stepping into a new home is a little like trying on a new life. What if this is your future? How will your life be different if this is the dining room where you host […]
Getting a Mortgage for New Construction
Maybe you have a clear vision of your dream home: the very latest in energy efficiency! Shiny new granite countertops in just the right color! Or maybe you live someplace where the existing housing stock just isn’t sufficient to meet the demands of your rapidly growing community. In plenty of places in the country, buying […]
A History of Credit Scores and Credit Reporting
Credit scores are a fact of life for Americans in the 21st-century, but credit scores haven’t always existed. Without credit scores, lenders might still be relying on handshakes and other subjective measures to determine credit-worthiness. Doing so would leave millions of Americans without access to the sort of capital necessary to buy a home or […]
Buying a Home When Your Partner Has Bad Credit
So, you’ve found a person with whom you want to spend the rest of your life. When you met, it was like you’d known each other forever. And now, the two of you want to buy a home and build a life together. In an ideal world, your perfect partner would also have perfect credit. […]
How to Clean Up Your Credit When Preparing to Buy a Home
Maybe your credit history isn’t exactly stellar. Sure, you’d like to be a homeowner one day—maybe even one day soon. But that recent run of bad luck and/or bad decisions showing up on your credit report doesn’t put you or your credit management skills in the best light for potential mortgage lenders. Or maybe your […]
Buying a Home Soon? Here’s How to Protect Your Credit Score
Your credit score may never be more important than it is when you’re applying for a mortgage. It’s not easy to raise your credit score dramatically in a short period of time. But it is easy to inadvertently lower your credit score quickly. In a best-case scenario, a sudden drop in your credit rating during […]