Do Credit inquiries affect credit scores? Yes and no. It depends on the type of inquiry. There are two types on credit inquiries, a hard inquiry and a soft inquiry. A hard inquiry is for situations like: Applying for a mortgage loan on a house, applying for a credit card, requesting a credit line increase [...]
The State of Maryland Housing 2025 report is from a survey run by the National Association of REALTORS(R) and the local Maryland REALTORS(R) Association. The interviews were run from January 6-9, 2025. Key findings from the State of Maryland Housing 2025 report: 84% of those surveyed feel that the cost to buy a house or [...]
The State of Maryland Housing 2024 report is from a survey run by the National Association of REALTORS(R) and the local Maryland REALTORS(R) branch. The interviews were run from January 9-16, 2024. Key findings from the State of Maryland Housing 2024 report: 82% of those surveyed feel that the cost to buy a house or [...]
Eight things your home inspector can't tell you comes from a post from HouseLogic, a site from the National Association of REALTORS. Thank you, HouseLogic, for your post! Here is their list, changed with my adjustments, thoughts and personalized details. They won't tell you if they would buy the house. They really aren't allowed to, [...]
The State of Maryland Housing 2023 report is from a survey run by the National Association of REALTORS(R) and the local Maryland REALTORS(R) branch. The interviews were run from January 3-9, 2023. Key findings from the report: 3 out of 4 of those surveyed feel that the cost to buy a house or rent an [...]
What credit score do I need to buy a house? Nerdwallet posted a very in-depth article last year that I found very useful and wanted to share. Please note that the guidelines for each credit score are from 2019. It is possible there could be new loan programs that came out after this post, so [...]
How does the interest rate on a mortgage affect my homebuying power? First, you should understand that the higher your mortgage amount, the more the rate could affect your homebuying ability. In an article by smartasset (TM), it notes that a 0.5% rise in interest rates can raise your monthly payment by $28 per $100,000 [...]
Mortgage applications are up both from last week and last year at this same time. There were 4.5% more mortgage applications submitted last week than the week before, and 6.1% higher than the same time last year. This is the highest level of new purchase mortgage applications since April 2010. CNBC has a great article [...]
The cost of renting vs owning a home in Maryland in 2017 may come as a surprise to many. The analysis was done by MSN Money for every state across the US. They found that the cost of renting in Maryland, on average, was about $1,753 per month. The average cost of a monthly mortgage? [...]
Buying your first home - what to do in the year leading up to your first purchase comes from an article on realtor.com that talks about what to do a year before buying your first home. There are many things you can do to prepare, both the year before, and the months leading up to [...]