3 Hottest and 3 Coldest Real Estate Markets
It’s easy to compare home price appreciation between the 20 cities covered by the Case-Shiller Home Price Index.Read more
Pre-School Mom Finds Her Dream Home – Jenn Murphy’s First Home Story
After their second daughter was born, Jenn and Ben decided it was time to buy their own home. Here’s their First Home Story.Read more
A Flame Shooting Out Of The Wall – Bobbie Scopa’s First Home Story
This hilarious first home story from my great friend Bobbie Scopa reminds me how much the home buying process has changed over the years. Back in the day, professional home inspectors didn’t even exist.Read more
2015 Condo Buy – Michael Leonard’s First Home Story
Michael’s timing was great when he bought his condo in 2015. First, he learned a ton about personal finance, then he saved a ton and decided he was ready to buy a place.Read more
8 Problem Locations – Know Before You Fall In Love With A House Online
If you’re thinking of buying your first home (or your second home or your third home), you’re probably having a lot of fun/stress looking at homes for sale online. You’re probably spending a lot of time on Zillow searching for neighborhoods you like and seeing if there’s anything good in your price range. If you…Read more
The Untold Truth of Home Appraisals
“You can’t overpay for the house because you’re going to get an appraisal.” That’s what some real estate agents and mortgage loan officers tell their clients but is it true?Read more
Home Price Charts Updated – Case-Shiller
At first, many years ago, I didn’t like the Case-Shiller index. I wanted to see dollars and cents home prices, not an index. The advantage of an index is that it’s easy to compare home price appreciation in two different cities or between your city and the U.S. as a whole.Read more
Top 3 Mortgage Calculators – “How Much House Can I Afford?”
If you’re just starting to think about buying a home, you’ll have a zillion questions. Here’s a huge one. “How much house can I afford?” Before you get too deep into looking at individual homes online, you need to get a ballpark idea of how much money you can borrow so you can figure out…Read more
Top Tips for First-Time Home Buyers – Kristin LaVanway’s First Home Story (Part 3)
Kristin sums up with her top tips for first-time home buyers.Read more
First Home After Divorce – Kristin LaVanway’s First Home Story (Part 2)
Kristin jumps into the story of buying her first home after divorce. The story takes a dramatic turn when it turns out Kristin bought the home at the top of the real estate bubbleRead more
Why The Black Homeownership Rate Is The Same 50 Years After The 1968 Fair Housing Act
The next few days you’ll probably see a lot of news stories about the Fair Housing Act being signed 50 years ago on April 11, 1968. What those stories likely won’t tell you is the percentage of U.S. blacks who own their own homes today compared to back then. The 1970 census found 42% of black households owned their own homes. Today, the number is also 42%. That seems impossible!Read more
I Pretty Much Did Everything Wrong – Kristin LaVanway’s First Home Story (Part 1)
Kristin had started her first job out of college as an engineer when she and her future husband decided to buy a house. Kristin says she pretty much did everything wrong.Read more
Rocket Scientist Finds Buying Home Too Complex – Chris Mielke’s First Home Story
Chris Mielke is a former rocket scientist who found the whole home buying process confusing and unnecessarily complex and he had a lot of trouble finding a good real estate agentRead more
The Flip That Didn’t – Deacon Hayes’ First Home Story
In his mid-20s, long before he became a personal finance blogger on making money, saving money and paying off debt, Deacon Hayes bought a condo with the idea of fixing it and flipping it. Unfortunately, his timing was bad.Read more
Watch It To Find Out Why This Video Has 60,000+ Views!
Please check out the video! Thanks!Read more
A Surprise In The Bottom 3 Cities For Home Price Appreciation
Updating these Case-Shiller charts by hand is mind-numbingly boring but I love the charts after I’m done! Seattle, Las Vegas and San Francisco appreciated the most from a year ago.Read more
Buy the House from Your Landlord – Pros and Cons for You and Your Landlord
If you’re thinking about trying to buy the house you’re renting from your landlord, you’re probably focusing on all the ADVANTAGES to you. You should also look at…Read more
Tax Bill 2017 – Real Estate Highlights
The week before Thanksgiving the full House passed a tax bill and a committee in the Senate passed a separate but similar tax bill that was sent to the full Senate to consider. It’s looking like we may end up with the largest changes to the U.S. tax code since 1986.Read more
Mortgage Interest Will Remain 100% Tax Deductible For Landlords
Here are my views of how federal tax policy makes homes much less affordable for American families.Read more
What Happens to Home Prices After a Fed Rate Increase?
I like to say that I predicted 4 out of the last 0 mortgage rate increases so I don’t even try to predict mortgage rate increases anymore. To me it seems crazy that they’ve been so low for so long. I would have never predicted it. BUT… the consensus this morning seems to be that the Fed will increase the Federal Funds rate in December.Read more