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How to Prepare to Finance a Home 1️⃣ Develop a budget.Instead of telling yourself what you’d like to spend, use receipts to create a budget that reflects your actual habits over the last several months. This approach will better factor in unexpected expenses alongside more predictable costs such as utility bills and groceries. You’ll probably spot […]

Vocabulary: Loans & Lending Terms Amortization With each mortgage payment, some of the money reduces the loan balance and some pays interest. This allocation is called amortization. While the earliest payments mostly cover interest, the split changes over time. That’s because as the loan gets smaller, less interest gets charged. Annual Percentage Rate (APR) The APR […]

Title Insurance protects consumers from financial loss and hardship related to unknown judgments and liens, forged transfers, inconsistencies within a property’s title or misapplication of fiduciary funds. Title insurance is an exclusively American invention. Its purpose was well stated in the first advertisement for title insurance back in the late 1800s: “This company insures the purchaser’s of […]

Home sweet home– it’s a phrase that carries a different kind of weight in your golden years.  When you’re deciding on lifestyle arrangements that will both meet your needs and allow you to live life fully, the choices can be confusing.  We sorted through some of the top options to help you make this important […]

Title Insurance protects consumers from financial loss and hardship related to unknown judgments and liens, forged transfers, inconsistencies within a property’s title or misapplication of fiduciary funds. As a soon to be home owner, you may be wondering whether title insurance is worth the cost or not. You need to know the importance of title insurance and […]

Tax benefits.The U.S. Tax Code lets you deduct the interest you pay on your mortgage, your property taxes, and some of the costs involved in buying a home. Appreciation.Historically, real estate has had a long-term, stable growth in value. In fact, median single-family existing-home sale prices have increased on average 5.2 percent each year from […]

The home buying process has a few fail-safes in place to make sure the home/property that you are about to purchase is owned by the person who is about to sell it to you. Title insurance, Title report, and Title search are all components of the home buying and closing process. Although each one is […]

🧳 Plan ahead.Develop a master to-do list so you won’t forget something critical heading into moving day. This will also help you create an estimate of moving time and costs. 🧳 Discard items you no longer want or need.Ask yourself how frequently you use an item and how you’d feel if you no longer had […]