Mortgages & Loans Archives | House and Hammer

Finders, fixers.

Three reasons right now might be your best chance to buy a home in Boston

The past few years have seen home prices — all over the country and state, but particularly in and around Boston — race upward. To say it’s been a seller’s market would be a vast understatement. With too few homes on the market, fierce competition has forced buyers into costly bidding wars, waiving important contingencies, and rushing what should be…

make way for ducklings statue on boston common - spring real estate guide home buying timeline

★Countdown to closing: A first-time home buyer checklist and timeline

As in baseball, winter is the real estate off-season; if you’re a first-time home buyer who’s been scouting homes on Redfin or Trulia or Zillow, you probably noticed there wasn’t much coming up for sale the past few months, which can be really frustrating (or a great opportunity, since many other buyers put their search on hold for…

first time home buyers in front of sold house

A guide to first-time home buyer programs

So you want to buy a house, but you don’t have a ton of money saved up (and you didn’t win the Powerball drawing)? It’s a common conundrum that many, many first-time home buyers face, but don’t worry: There’s an app(lication) for that. First-time home buyers are great for the economy — they make up about a…

couple using home equity loan for remodeling project

What’s a home equity loan, and what’s a line of credit?

If you’ve lived in your home for a while, paying down the principal on your mortgage while home values have crept (and then leapt) higher, you may now have a decent amount of equity in your house — the difference between what the home is worth and what you owe the bank. That equity is…