7 steps to take today if you want to buy a home this year

Buying a home and obtaining a mortgage are no easy tasks. You need to have your finances in good order if you hope to get approved for a loan to buy a home.


If you want to buy a house in 2016, here are several New Year’s resolutions to follow through on that can help make you a better homebuyer.


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The Only Way Millennials Can Afford To Live In Big Cities

In over half of the biggest U.S. cities, the typical millennial can't afford a 1,000 square-foot home, according to a recent report. SmartAsset, a tech company that offers tools to make financial decisions, used their home affordability calculator to analyze median income and net worth of people under age 35. It then compared the results to interest rates and the down payment needed to buy a home in the largest 23 cities.


The calculator, which is supposed to help a potential homebuyer determine what size and cost they can afford, might be useful for, say, a middle-class family trying to decide if they have the resources to buy a house with a spare bedroom. But the results can get absurd in many of the largest cities.


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Housing Boom Time? U.S. Mortgage Market Outlook for 2016

With 2015 rapidly fading in the rear view mirror, U.S. homebuyers and sellers are seeing their thoughts turn to the 2016 residential real estate market.

Several factors that could impact the real estate sector are already in play -- a fresh interest rate hike from the Federal Reserve (with more rate hikes likely to follow in 2016), stronger U.S. gross domestic product growth and a moderately stronger jobs market should bolster the economy and raise both mortgage rates and home prices, experts say.


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