The home buying and selling process look something like this: Get preapproved for a mortgage, find your dream home and win the bidding war. Get an offer, get an inspection, and re-negotiate, and do the other steps to close. But before anyone can move those boxes in and start enjoying your new property, you have one more major step to take: the home inspection. A home inspection isn't an appraisal. In fact, an inspection has nothing to do with your home's value -or how much your lender is … [Read more...]

Saving for a down payment is often the biggest hurdle for a first-time homebuyer. Depending on where you live, median income, median rents, and home prices all vary. So, we set out to find out how long it would take to save for a down payment in each state. Using data from the United States Census Bureau and Zillow, we determined how long it would take, nationwide, for a first-time buyer to save enough money for a down payment on their dream home. There is a long-standing ‘rule’ that a … [Read more...]