How to Prepare Your Home for an Appraisal | Tips for Getting your Home Appraised

Tips to follow when getting your home ready for a Home Appraisal. After you’ve accepted an offer to sell your home, your property will be appraised to see if it’s worth what the buyer is offering. This appraisal is crucial to making sure the sale goes through smoothly. If it comes in too low, the
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Buying a Home with Extended Family | Sharing a Mortgage with Family Members

When family members buy a home together, they all become co-signers on the mortgage. They can all live together in the same house, but in many cases, it is not required. That means your parents, grandparents, aunts or uncles, or siblings could help you buy a home as a gift to you, or they could
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5 Questions Unmarried Couples Should Ask before Buying a Home

Roughly 9% of all U.S. homebuyers in 2020 were unmarried couples. If you and your partner are considering a house purchase before tying the knot, there are some important questions you should ask yourself to see if it makes sense.   How does the law see our purchase? In a few states, you are considered
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Mortgage Terms: You have more options than 15 or 30 years!

Mortgage Terms 10, 15, 20, and beyond
Timing is everything when it comes to home loans, from knowing how long you have to close in order to secure your ideal rate to understanding the differences in mortgage terms. Loan terms are easy to identify. For example, a 30-year, fixed rate mortgage has a term of 30 years. However, determining what term is
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How Time Affects Your Mortgage Rates

Mortgage Rates and Time Image
Let me tell you a story about mortgage rates. Before I started my career as a home loan officer, I considered myself to be a very smart and educated buyer. When my husband and I were in the process of purchasing our second house in the 1990s, I called at least 10 different lenders. I
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Mortgage Pitfalls: Explaining Why Advertised Mortgage Rates aren’t Always What You Get

Ad for Mortgage Rates
When was the last time you encountered something that seemed too good to be true? Unless you got lucky, I’m going to go out on a limb and assume that it really was too good to be true. This is often the case with advertised mortgage rates.  The most common pitfall I encounter as a
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Home Loan Success Requires Becoming a Flexible Buyer

Flexible woman doing a backbend
My husband and I were on one side of the desk, and the builder was on the other. We were buying our first house together. I said, “We need the payment to be $500 a month because we’re paying $400 now and I know we can afford $500. I don’t mean $520 or $550. I
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Home Loans and Teamwork—It Makes the Dream Work!

Trying to get pre-approved for a mortgage? Seeking to understand the mortgage pre-approval process? Looking to buy your first home? Whatever your home loan goals are, it will take a team to accomplish them. Think of your home loan process as a puzzle. There are many pieces, and they must all fit together in order
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The Mortgage Process 10 Commandments

10 Commandments Thumbnail
  A lot of problems arise because a consumer doesn’t understand what’s happening behind the scenes of getting a mortgage. My mission is to change that!  Understanding that process, the timelines, and the guidelines more accurately can help you with a smooth and on-time closing. Since less than 50% of mortgage applications get to closing,
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Reaching our Goals and Dreams!

Do you have goals and dreams? I’d love to hear what they are! Some people don’t realize that goals & dreams are NOT the same thing. A dream is something that makes you happy… an idea or vision of something you could have, do or achieve. Maybe by yourself or maybe with others. But a
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