finance
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FHA vs. Conventional Loans: A Comprehensive Comparison
When it comes to affording a new home, you have a few types of home loans to choose from. Prospective homebuyers often compare the FHA vs. the conventional loan when researching loans. Ea
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Making a Home Offer: A Comprehensive 9-Step Guide for Buyers
You’ve found your dream home and you’re ready to take the next step toward making it yours. After preparing and saving for your big purchase, it’s time to learn how to make an offer on a
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Earnest Money Explained: What It Is & Why It Matters
Earnest money is a deposit a potential homebuyer places to signal to the seller that they have serious interest in a property. Also called a “good faith” deposit, this money benefits both
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Rocket Mortgage: Simplifying Home Buying for First-Time Buyers in a Competitive Market
With the housing market heating up as mortgage rates remain low, people are flocking to buy a house, including many first-time buyers. The share of first-time homebuyers in the market rea
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Negotiating a Home Price: A Comprehensive Buyer's Guide
When you buy a home, the seller you’re buying from will probably expect you to negotiate the asking price. In fact, most sellers price their home a bit higher than market value to compens
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First-Time Home Buyer Costs: Essential Expenses & Savings Guide
Many first-time buyers underestimate how much it really costs to buy (and maintain) a home. In this article, we’ll take a closer look at a few expenses you’ll need to anticipate and save
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Your Complete Guide to Buying a Home: Steps & Tips
Buying a house can be one of the most exciting times of your life, but it’s important to ask yourself a few questions and explore how to balance your wants and needs with your budget befo
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Understanding Mortgage Types: A Comprehensive Guide for Home Buyers
As a prospective home buyer, it’s just as important to research types of mortgages as the neighborhoods you want to live in. Applying for a home loan can be complicated, and deciding whic
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FHA Streamline Refinance: Benefits, Requirements & Costs
FHA streamline refinancing is a quick and simple way to improve the terms on your home loan — but it only applies to those who have already taken out an FHA loan to finance the purchase o
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Sell Your House: A 7-Step Guide for Maximum Profit
You know what they say: there’s no place like home! What Dorothy didn’t tell you is that there’s also no sale like the sale of your home. Selling your home is probably the biggest sale y
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First-Time Home Buyer: Financial Preparation & Savings Strategies
Home-buying season is coming up. With the warmer weather approaching, home buyers are eagerly waiting to find their dream place. Since buying a house is typically the biggest purchase you
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Top Credit Cards for Home Improvement Projects - Mint
From the Mint team: Mint may be compensated if you click on the links to our issuer partners’ offers that appear in this article, including Chase. Our partners do not endorse, review or a
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Cost-Effective Moving Strategies: 4 Ways to Save Money
Summer is an extremely popular time to move. Many people avoid moving during the other months due to their kids being in school and not wanting to disrupt the school season. Once school&#
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Inflation's Impact on Home Buying: What You Need to Know
If you’ve read the business section of any website or newspaper lately, it seems like inflation is the topic that’s on the tip of everyone’s tongue. The impact can be seen on everything f
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Understanding the Benefits of Tax-Deferred Savings
Sometimes, we in the personal finance game are good at telling you what to do but not why. So much of our advice is obvious: Save your money, don’t take a payday loan and don’t buy deriv
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Retirement Planning: Addressing Social Security Concerns & Strategies
You hear it all the time, particularly if you read too many financial blogs: “I’m not counting on Social Security to be there when I retire, so I’m ignoring it in my retirement planning.
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Understanding the Financial Costs of Divorce: A Comprehensive Guide
Divorce is not only an emotionally trying experience, but it can be a financially devastating one, as well. According to the web site Maritalstatus.com, the average cost of a divorce in t
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Solo 401(k) for Self-Employed: A Comprehensive Guide
Every once in a while, I receive a stack of paper in the mail from Vanguard addressed to “Plan Administrator,” which gives me an undeserved sense of self-importance. No, I didn’t select “
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Marginal vs. Effective Tax Rate: Understanding the Difference
Think you’re unlucky? I know a guy who’ll pay 99% of his income in taxes if the Bush-era tax cuts expire at the end of December. Our mystery man lives in Pico Rivera, California. He owns
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Retirement Planning: The Critical Advantage of Time - Don't Delay!
Losing the benefit of time. For all the expert advice that is out there surrounding retirement planning and investing, there is one key advantage that every earner has in preparing for re
finance
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Affordable Care Act (ACA): Understanding Dependent Health CoverageThe Affordable Care Act changed the rules for health insurance in many ways. Younger people particularly benefitted from one change, a rule that insurers cannot drop them from their parents coverage s...
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Naked Options: Risks, Rewards, and How They WorkA naked option is an investing term that refers to an investor selling an option without holding a corresponding position in the option’s underlying security. Selling naked options is considered...
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Risk-Free Rate: Definition, Importance & How It WorksThe risk-free rate of return is the interest rate an investor can expect to earn on an investment that carries zero risk. In practice, the risk-free rate is commonly considered to equal to the interes...
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Credit Unions: Advantages & Disadvantages - A Comprehensive GuidePhoto: HowardLake ...