Real Estate
Housing market coverage, home buying and selling, mortgages, rentals, and property investment. From market trends to the practical decisions involved in owning or renting.
Latest in Real Estate
A home-equity line can fund repairs, but it puts the house on the line if payments stop
When a roof fails or a furnace dies, a home-equity line of credit is often the cheapest large sum a homeowner can reach. It typically...
Renting out a room brings taxable income, but many of the rental’s costs are deductible
Turning a spare bedroom into rent money looks like a clean win for a homeowner facing higher costs, but the IRS treats it as the...
Some states and counties offer down-payment help and closing-cost grants to older or first-time buyers
The cash needed to close on a home — a down payment plus thousands in closing costs — is the wall that stops many would-be...
Some towns let seniors trade volunteer hours for a break on their property-tax bill
For an older homeowner squeezed by a rising property-tax bill, one form of relief is unusual because it does not require proving poverty or hitting...
Appealing your property-tax assessment can shave hundreds off the bill, and many owners win
A property-tax bill looks fixed, but the number that drives it is an estimate — and estimates can be wrong. Every bill starts with an...
Many states offer renters a property-tax credit that few ever claim
Property tax feels like a homeowner’s problem, which is exactly why a benefit built for renters slips past the people it was designed for. A...
You can drop private mortgage insurance once you reach 20% home equity
Private mortgage insurance is a charge many homeowners keep paying long after federal law says it can stop. Lenders require it on conventional loans made...
Recasting a mortgage can cut the monthly payment without refinancing at today’s higher rates
A homeowner sitting on a low mortgage rate who has come into a lump sum faces an awkward problem: refinancing to lower the monthly payment...
A homestead exemption can shave hundreds off a property-tax bill and shield some home equity
A homestead exemption is one of the few tax breaks a homeowner claims once and keeps collecting for years, and in most states it removes...
Couples can shield up to $500,000 of home-sale profit from federal tax
A house bought decades ago is, for many retirees, their single largest untaxed gain — a property purchased for a fraction of today’s price and...
A homestead exemption can shield part of a home’s value from creditors and trim the property-tax bill
Two homeowners with identical houses on the same street can owe very different property-tax bills and face very different exposure to creditors, and the reason...
Mortgage closing costs can run 2% to 5% of the loan, due at signing
The interest rate gets almost all the attention when a person buys or refinances a home, but a second, often-overlooked bill lands at the end...
Disabled veterans pay no funding fee on a VA home loan and can buy with nothing down
On a typical first VA loan with nothing down, the government’s funding fee runs 2.15 percent of the amount borrowed — about $6,450 on a...
The home-sale tax break — $250,000 single, $500,000 for couples — hasn’t risen since 1997
The tax break that shields most home sellers from a capital-gains bill is showing its age. When a primary residence is sold, an owner can...
Mortgage rates near 6.65% are sitting close to a one-year high, squeezing retirees who hoped to downsize
The average rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage stood at 6.65% in the week of August 20, 2026, down two basis points from the prior...
Almost anyone who bought a home through an agent can claim part of a $120 million commission settlement before October 27
The National Association of Realtors and a group of large brokerages have agreed to pay $120,334,500 to settle claims that they kept home-sale commissions artificially...
Property assessments can climb even when home values fall, and you can appeal a bill set above market value
A falling home value does not guarantee a falling tax bill. Because assessed values are set on a lag and often trail market swings by...
Americans owe $459 billion on home-equity credit lines, a variable-rate debt secured by the house
Americans now owe $459 billion on home-equity lines of credit, the highest total in more than a decade and the seventeenth consecutive quarter that the...
A home seller can exclude up to $250,000 of gain, or $500,000 married, a limit frozen since 1997
When a homeowner sells a primary residence at a profit, the federal tax code lets a single seller shield up to $250,000 of that gain...
The 30-year mortgage is stuck near 6.7%, squeezing retirees who want to downsize
The average rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage sat at 6.67 percent in mid-August, barely changed from the week before and still higher than it...