peter@mytrianglehome.com Blog

How Long Do Families Stay in a Home? The National Association of Realtors (NAR) keeps historic data on many aspects of homeownership. One of the data points that has changed dramatically is the median tenure of a family in a home. As the graph below shows, for over twenty years (1985-2008), the ...

Think All Millennials Live in Their Parent's Basement? Think Again! According to the Census Bureau, millennials have overtaken baby boomers as the largest generation in U.S. History. Millennials, or America's youth born between 1982-2000, now represent more than one quarter of the nation’s popula...

What to Expect When Home Inspecting So you made an offer, it was accepted, and now your next task is to have the home inspected prior to closing. More often than not, your agent may have made your offer contingent on a clean home inspection. This contingency allows you to renegotiate the price pa...

Buying is Now 37.7% Cheaper Than Renting in the US The results of the latest Rent vs. Buy Report from Trulia show that homeownership remains cheaper than renting with a traditional 30-year fixed rate mortgage in the 100 largest metro areas in the United States. The updated numbers actually show ...

Starting to Look for a Home? Know What You WANT vs. What You NEED In this day and age of being able to shop for anything anywhere, it is really important to know what you’re looking for when you start your home search. If you’ve been thinking about buying a home of your own for some time now, yo...

How Historically Low Interest Rates Increase Your Purchasing Power According to Freddie Mac’s latest Primary Mortgage Market Survey, interest rates for a 30-year fixed rate mortgage are currently at 3.47%. Rates have remained at or below 3.5% each of the last 16 weeks, marking a historic low. Th...

Don’t Disqualify Yourself… Over Half of All Loans Approved Have a FICO Score Under 750 The results of countless studies have shown that potential home buyers, and even current homeowners, have an inflated view of what is really required to qualify for a mortgage in today’s market. One such study...

Do You Know the Cost of Renting vs. Buying?  Some Highlights: Historically, the choice between renting or buying a home has been a close decision. Looking at the percentage of income needed to rent a median priced home today (30%) vs. the percentage needed to buy a median priced home (15%), the c...

3 Questions to Ask Before Buying Your Dream Home If you are debating purchasing a home right now, you are probably getting a lot of advice. Though your friends and family will have your best interest at heart, they may not be fully aware of your needs and what is currently happening in the real ...

Mortgage Rates by Decade Compared to Today  Some Highlights: The interest rate you secure for your mortgage greatly influences your monthly housing costs. In the 1980s, 30-year fixed mortgage rates averaged in the high 12s making the monthly principal and interest payment over $2,000. Interest ra...