As a buyer, you are entitled to know exactly what you are getting. Don't take anything for granted, not even what you see or what the seller or listing agent tell you. A professional home inspection is something you MUST do, whether you are buying an exis...
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Your First Step Toward Buying a Home When preparing to buy a home, the first thing many homebuyers do is look at the real estate ads in newspapers, magazines and listings on the Internet. Some potential buyers read how-to articles like this one. The next...
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Have These Items Ready When You Apply For a Loan It used to be that lenders mailed out verifications to employers, banks, mortgage companies, and so on, in order to verify the data supplied by borrowers. Nowadays, the interest is often in speed and getti...
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Years ago, credit scoring had little to do with mortgage lending. When reviewing the credit worthiness of a borrower, an underwriter would make a subjective decision based on past payment history. Then things changed. Lenders studied the relationship be...
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When you apply for a mortgage loan, you expect your lender to pull a credit report and look at whether you've made your payments on time. What you may not expect is that they seem to be more interested in your FICO® score. "What's a FICO® score?" is a ...
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When buying a home, it is not enough to just come up with the money. With the exception of no asset verification loans, lenders want to verify where the money for your new home will be coming from. If you can document that the funds are coming from your p...
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This is a detailed summary of costs you may have to pay when you buy or refinance your home. They are listed in the order that they should appear on a Good Faith Estimate you obtain from a mortgage lender. There are two broad categories of closing costs. ...
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An adjustable rate mortgage (ARM) has an interest rate that fluctuates periodically. This is in contrast to a fixed rate mortgage, which always has the same interest rate. Every ARM has basic components: An index A margin Adjustment Period An inter...
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Now that you know what an ARM is and how it works, you may be wondering what the advantages and disadvantages are. So let's explore that issue. Offering adjustable rates allows lenders to transfer part of the interest rate risk from themselves to the bor...
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Title Insurance. It's a term we hear and see frequently - we see reference to it in the Sunday real estate section, in advertisements and in conversations with real estate brokers. If you've purchased a home before, you're probably familiar with the bene...
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