Deborah Kearns

The changing landscape caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, coupled with a new freedom to work from home, has led to some speculation that people will migrate en masse from cities to less expensive and less dense towns.
But are people really leaving big cities for smaller towns? A new study from LendingTree compared migration data from 2019 and 2020 to find out.
Specifically, LendingTree looked at the share of homeowners who lived in one of the nation’s 50 largest cities and moved to a new home i...

Lending guidelines for loans backed by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) don’t set a VA loan credit score requirement. However, most lenders require a 620 minimum credit score for a VA loan and tend to offer lower interest rates to borrowers with higher scores.
See VA rates in your area
What VA loan credit score do you need?
While the VA doesn’t set a minimum credit score for a VA loan, many lenders won’t accept a score below 620. How you’ve paid your rent or mortgage payments in t...

Paying for major home repairs and improvements can be a challenge for low- to moderate-income homeowners. That’s why government agencies offer home repair grants, which are free financial assistance programs that help some homeowners pay for repairs and upgrades to their homes.
In this article:
What is a home repair grant?
Where do I find home repair grants?
Who’s eligible for a home repair grant?
How to apply for a home repair grant
Other financing options if you don’t qualify for a home rep...

Refinancing a mortgage involves replacing your current home loan with a new one. Homeowners might refinance to get a lower interest rate, shorter loan term or to change loan types.
Knowing how to refinance a mortgage, including the refinance process, costs, timeline and other factors, can help you better decide if it’s the right move.
What is refinancing?
A mortgage refinance is when you replace your mortgage with a new loan that has better terms, such as a lower refinance rate or monthly pay...

For many home sellers, the most anxiety-inducing part of the home-selling process is trying to simultaneously sell their current place while buying their next dream home.
That’s according to findings from a new survey commissioned by LendingTree, which also found that sellers are planning to spend an average of more than $10,000 on repairs and upgrades to sell their home.
Key findings
The No. 1 stressor for nearly one-third (29%) of home sellers is buying and selling a home at the same time.
...

Your debt-to-income (DTI) ratio — the relationship between your monthly debt payments and gross monthly income — is one of the main factors lenders consider when determining your ability to afford a mortgage.
How to calculate your debt-to-income ratio
There are two types of DTI ratios — the front-end ratio and the back-end ratio. The front-end ratio is the percentage of your gross monthly income used to pay for housing, such as your monthly rent or mortgage payment. The back-end ratio focuses...

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U.S. homeowners are sitting on record amounts of home equity, but they’re reluctant to tap it. If they did, though, they’re most likely to spend it on adding value to their homes, according to a new Bankrate.com survey.
Nearly three-quarters of homeowners say making home improvements or repairs is a good reaso...

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Sharon Townsend’s U.S. Army service in the 1980s was brief, but when she recently decided to buy her first home she discovered that her military benefits last a lifetime.
Townsend assumed homeownership was out of reach because she wound up with poor credit after her divorce, she says. The disabled veteran also...

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Students across the country are beginning to head back to school this month, and summer is winding down. As families with children are kicking off a new school year, homebuying activity isn’t as fast and furious as it was earlier during the spring sales season.
For tenacious homebuyers who are still in the gam...

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Rising home prices across the U.S. have boosted homeowners’ equity to record-setting levels. That means you can convert your home’s increased value into cash. Seems like a no-brainer, right?
Well, there’s more to the story. Many homeowners are reluctant to use home equity loans to tap their homes like an ATM. ...

Timing is everything and this is particularly true when selling a house. In fact, sellers can potentially net thousands of dollars more if they sell during the peak month of June versus the two slowest months of the year, October and December, according to a recent report by ATTOM Data.
Best time to sell a house
The first month of summer — June — is the best time to sell a house, netting a 9.2 percent seller premium, based on ATTOM Data’s analysis of 28 million single-family home and condo sa...

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With homeowners staying in their homes longer these days, it’s no surprise that they’ve dropped a lot of cash on big-ticket home improvements in recent years. But new research suggests homeowners are pumping the brakes on how much they’ll shell out for remodeling projects this year.
After home remodeling spend...

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Signing a rental lease agreement for the first time can be exciting. However, interpreting these legally binding contracts can be slightly confusing, and what you don’t know can come back to bite you later.
What is a rental lease agreement?
A rental lease agreement is a contract between a landlord and a tenant...

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Existing-home inventory is dreadfully low in many areas and prices keep climbing. If you can’t find a suitable resale or you just want to start fresh, new construction might be an option.
New homes offer enhanced safety and energy efficiency, amenities and layouts more suited to modern lifestyles, and sometime...