Tips, trends and insights for homebuyers like you.
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Can You Use Rental Income to Qualify for a Mortgage?
Yes, you can use rental income to qualify for a mortgage, but lenders won’t necessarily count every dollar you collect. For new or anticipated rental income, they typically start with 75% of the expected rent. For rentals you already own, they generally look at the income reported on your tax returns. How much actually helps… Read more
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2025 mortgage interest rate forecast
See how Tomo Mortgage’s head of Capital Markets breaks down the latest mortgage rate forecasts, predictions, and outlooks for 2025. Read more
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Buying a House After Divorce: What Lenders Check Before Preapproval
Key takeaways Is there a waiting period to buy a house after divorce? No. There’s no universal waiting period after divorce before you can qualify for… Read more
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Buying a House With Student Loan Debt: What Lenders Actually Count
Key takeaways Mortgage lenders don’t always count what you actually pay on your student loans. They count a qualifying payment, set by your loan program and… Read more
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Can I Get a Mortgage If I Just Started a New Job?
Key Takeaways Often, yes: starting a new job doesn’t by itself rule out a mortgage. Fannie Mae’s guidelines ask whether your most recent two years show… Read more
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Mortgage Lenders With No Origination Fees: How to Tell If You’re Really Saving
Key Takeaways What does “no origination fee” actually remove? It removes one lender charge. It doesn’t remove your closing costs, and it may not remove every… Read more
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AmeriSave vs. Rocket Mortgage
Key Takeaways Tomo Mortgage publishes this comparison and is included as one of the lenders below. We use public lender disclosures and federal HMDA data for… Read more
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Can I Get a Mortgage With a 580 Credit Score?
Key Takeaways What the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) permits at a 580 credit score FHA loans are built around the 580 credit score line. In fiscal… Read more
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Qualifying for a Mortgage on 1099 Income: How Lenders Actually Calculate It
Being a 1099 contractor doesn’t put you in a separate mortgage category. It does mean lenders read your income differently than a W-2 paycheck, and depending… Read more
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Rocket Mortgage vs. Better
Key Takeaways: That leaves three questions: which loan you need, where you’re buying, and what each lender quotes you on the same day. Who’s in the… Read more
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Prequalification vs. Preapproval: Which one do you actually need?
Key takeaways: If your agent asked for a preapproval, a prequalification isn’t the same document and won’t do the same job. The harder part is that… Read more
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How to Rate Shop for a Mortgage Without Hurting Your Credit Score
Shopping multiple mortgage lenders does not multiply the hit to your credit score. Under current FICO scoring models, multiple mortgage-related hard inquiries made within a 45-day… Read more
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How to Get a VA Loan on a Condo
Yes, you can use a VA loan to buy a condo, but the condo project itself, not just your specific unit, has to be on VA’s… Read more
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Online Mortgage Lender Comparison: Rate, Fees, and Close Time (2026)
There isn’t a reliable, apples-to-apples ranking of online mortgage lenders by name on conventional, FHA, VA, and jumbo rates, fees, and close time, rate quotes change… Read more