Buyer Agreements: What You're Signing Before You Tour a Home

Featured Advice

How to Read a Loan Estimate, Section by Section

The interest rate gets the attention, but pages 2 and 3 of a Loan Estimate are where lender offers often differ most. Here's how to read every section.

You’ll learnWhen a lender must provide your Loan Estimate, and the six pieces of information that count as a mortgage application

Seller Closing Costs: How to Estimate Your Net Proceeds

Your sale price isn't what you walk away with. Here's every line item between the two, what drives each one, and a fill-in worksheet to build your own estimate.

You’ll learnWhy your mortgage payoff is higher than your statement balance, and what else to check, like HELOCs and prepayment penalties

Living in Wilmington, NC: What Buyers Should Know Before Moving

A due-diligence guide to Wilmington and nearby areas: town lines, flood maps, coastal wind coverage, tax layers, water service, historic-district rules, and NC contract basics.

You’ll learnWhy Wilmington, the three beach towns, and the unincorporated county are separate jurisdictions, and why that changes taxes, rules, and utilities

Mortgage Rate Lock: How It Works and What Can Still Change

A rate lock holds the price of one specific loan for a set time, and only while your file stays the same. Here's what it covers and what to ask first.

You’ll learnWhat a mortgage rate lock commits the lender to, and where your lock status appears on page 1 of the Loan Estimate

Buying a Home

Buyer Agreements: What You're Signing Before You Tour a Home

Why agents working through NAR-affiliated MLSs need a written buyer agreement before touring a home with you, and how state rules can add to that

Final Walkthrough Checklist: What to Check Before Closing

What the final walkthrough is for, and why it is not a second inspection or a new negotiation

Buying a Fixer-Upper: How to Tell a Good Deal From a Money Pit

Home Ownership

See also: Insurance · Home Maintenance

Property Tax Assessment: How to Check Yours and When to Appeal

How a property tax bill is generally built from value, exemptions, and local tax rates, and which part an appeal can address

Replacement Cost vs. Actual Cash Value: How Claims Are Settled

How replacement cost and actual cash value differ, and why depreciation is the dividing line

Septic System Maintenance for Coastal Homeowners: What Most People Get Wrong

How a septic tank separates sludge, scum and effluent, and why solids left to accumulate eventually clog the drain field soil

Selling a Home

Seller Closing Costs: How to Estimate Your Net Proceeds

Why your mortgage payoff is higher than your statement balance, and what else to check, like HELOCs and prepayment penalties

Pre-Listing Home Inspection: Is It Worth It for Sellers?

What a pre-listing home inspection gives you: time, repair quotes, and a choice to fix, price in, credit, or disclose

Selling a Vacation Home: What's Different From Selling Your Primary Residence

Why a second home usually falls outside the primary-residence capital gains exclusion, and how past depreciation can be recaptured at sale

Southern Coastal NC

Living in Wilmington, NC: What Buyers Should Know Before Moving

Why Wilmington, the three beach towns, and the unincorporated county are separate jurisdictions, and why that changes taxes, rules, and utilities

Buying an Investment Property on Oak Island, NC: What to Check Before You Buy

Calabash, NC: What Buyers Should Know

Why Calabash is a creek and waterway town built around a working seafood waterfront rather than an oceanfront beach town

The Benefits of Living in Southport, NC Year-Round: Why Full-Time Residents Get the Best of the Town

What the roughly October-to-April off-season gives Southport residents: a calm waterfront, open restaurant tables, and downtown returned to locals