Major home renovations are often intended to benefit the homeowners directly. When it comes time to sell your home, however, the scale and intent of upgrades can be much different. The good news is, you don’t have to stretch your budget to the limit to create impactful changes. In this article, we’ll outline easy updates to quickly sell your home. Whether your home needs work on the interior or exterior, we’ve got the projects that will give you an excellent ROI.

Updates to Your Home’s Exterior

The impact of your home’s curb appeal cannot be overstated. Buyers will often judge your home before they have even stepped out of their car; updates to your home’s exterior may encourage buyers to approach the rest of your home with confidence and

There are three numbers that matter the most when it comes to a home loan application. They are your credit score, your debt-to-income ratio, and your loan-to-value ratio. These specific numbers matter because they affect your ability to qualify for a home loan as well as your interest rate for the loan.

This article will give you a quick overview of those numbers and how they affect your mortgage!

Your Credit Score

You’re likely familiar with this number. A credit score, also sometimes called your FICO score, is a three-digit number between 300-850. This number scores your borrowing history. It’s independently calculated by each of the three main credit bureaus (Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion) using your payment history, your current debt,

Luxury homes are … luxurious. But what about them makes them so? Aside from price point, and the usual beauty that comes with, luxury homes are usually on the forefront of amenities for the more traditional market. So whether you’re buying, selling or interested in luxury homes, or just wanted to see home trends are on the horizon, we’ve compiled a few of this year’s top luxury trends:

Embedded Technology

Smart home technologies, like Nest, have become more and more popular – but what about ALL systems being connected? Now, a home embedded with technology for all systems is not only a bonus, but is also expected in luxury real estate. Buyers expect to be able to see every home system, as well as security from their iPhones.

Wellness & Work

The typical advice for first time home buyers is to purchase a starter home –that is, the home that’s one step away from their larger “forever” home. But is that always the best route to go? With just about 45 million millennials entering the real estate buying age, that’s something that’s on our minds too.

Potential Problems with a Start Home

There are two significant problems on the horizon for first-time home buyers in the market for a starter home, and both have to do with demand. As we said, there’s a lot of first-time buyers all entering the market at the same time. With so many looking for the same thing, properties that fit the bill will be scarce.

The other event that puts a strain on the availability of homes is that many of the

A simple way to understand what home equity is is to think of it as the portion of your home that you truly own, that is, the value of your home not included in your current home loan. Home equity is what makes homeownership such a great investment. The opportunity to increase equity can be quite significant, making it one of your most valuable assets.

Find out how to build it up and how to use it to its full potential.

Building Equity  

Repaying your loan: Increasing your equity is as simple as making your monthly mortgage payments. How much increase you can expect depends on several factors, including how much of your payment goes towards the principal and interest. The great news is your rate of building equity increases with every passing

Just like trying on clothes or taking a car for a test drive, buying a home comes with a test run, as well. Once you decide you love a house and want to buy – one of the last major steps before finalizing it is the inspection. To be sure you get everything you need from the inspection, here’s what you need to know:

How to Find an Inspector?

There are many different ways to find an inspector, but we highly recommend going off of recommendations from realtors, and trusted family/friends. For referrals from recent homebuyers, choose those that have been in their home for at least 6 months, so they know if anything major popped up that the inspector didn’t catch. We also recommend asking more than one about their backgrounds, and specialties.

Turns out, buying a home is a huge decision. (Just kidding, obviously we all know that). But what we don’t think about that often is that by renting, we are also actively deciding not to buy. Whether we realize it or not, we are actively having to make the decision over and over again about whether to buy or rent. Because of this, we thought it would be helpful to give a quick rundown of things you should think about when it comes to renting vs. buying.

Down Payment

Renting – The initial payment to move into a rental can still get steep, with many places asking for first and last month’s rent plus a security deposit. However, even with the somewhat steep upfront cost, there are no more unexpected costs. 

Buying – With buying, you have to put

While most of us have seen countless home improvement shows over the years, fewer people realize that there are also podcasts tailored to every aspect of home ownership. Whether you’re in the early stages of planning out your project or are renovating on a budget, today’s best podcasts for current or future homeowners have the answers to all of your questions.

Each podcast is free to download for Android and iOS, including links to extensive, information-packed archives.

Home Repair Tutor

Intended for the new or struggling DIY homeowner, Home Repair Tutor aims to educate and inspire. This weekly podcast is crammed with tips on buying the right tools and supplies, proper preparation, and guidelines to help you decide whether or not you can

In case you weren’t aware: Buying a home is a big deal. 

The good news? It’s a process, and the more comfortable and informed you are with the process, the smoother, and more educated your home buying journey will be.

While exact steps can vary depending on your situation, we’ve pulled together an overview of what the typical process looks like:

1.) Know Your Credit Score & What You Can Afford

Checking your credit score to know what you’re working with for a mortgage is an essential next step. Check out this article on how to navigate the free credit score system. In addition, you want to know what you can afford (and feel comfortable with) for a down payment and monthly mortgage payments. Check out this tool from Zillow to help figure what

When talking about the benefits of owning a home, especially from a mortgage professional’s point-of-view, you often hear about the financial upside of homeownership. While it’s true that buying a home remains one of the most stable investments one make, there are many more advantages to homeownership.

So as we now enter what many are calling a “borrower’s market,” we want to share some of the lesser-known benefits of buying a home. Do any of these surprise you?

The Personal Value of Homeownership

Owning a home is a marker for many essential milestones, namely, entering adulthood. It also represents independence, success, and stability. It can also mark the beginning of positive events, like starting a family or gatherings, as well as