Today’s prospective homeowners are actually quite lucky — there are a lot of different mortgage products to choose form, which is always a nice thing. However, when you’re right in the midst of getting your mortgage, you might not be sure of what to actually get. Your mortgage broker is definitely going to be helpful, but you’ll want to still learn more about the process to make sure that you’re not screwed over.

Fixed-rate mortgages sound like a good thing, but are they really? That’s the question that many people have when they go through the process, especially because the interest rate can be higher than if you were to try to get an adjustable-rate mortgage. The only trouble with the comparison is that they are two very different mortgages by design. The adjustable-rate mortgage starts out low, but it adjusts upward very quickly — meaning that your payments are going to be much higher than if you had started out with the fixed-rate mortgage all along. Unless you’re planning on having a much higher income over time or if you have good credit to the point where you’re going to be able to refinance, you should avoid the adjustable rate mortgage.

We know those teaser rates are tempting, but you’re going to have to think long term if you’re going to really move into a house that you’re going to be able to keep. There’s just no other way around it.

The positives of a fixed-rate mortgage can be summed up with one word: stability. No matter what happens in the economy around you, you’re going to be paying one monthly payment. That makes budgeting a breeze. Who wants to cringe during certain times of the year, worrying that their mortgage is going to go up? When you really step back and think about it, you realize that your home is the single most important investment that you can make. Why would you ever want to chance not being able to afford where you live?

That’s something that’s just unthinkable to us. Even if you aren’t keen on a 30 year fixed-rate mortgage, there’s nothing that says that you have to deal with it — why not go with a 15 year mortgage? It might take a little better budgeting from you, but you’ll own your house much sooner and you can then have a mortgage-free home to enjoy — what could be better than that?

No matter when you’re ready to buy real estate for yourself, there’s one thing you need above anything else — a real estate agent! Even though the rise of the Internet has given way to a lot of free information, we still believe that having an expert to help you out is definitely a smart way to go. You just need to make sure that you really take the time to look for a buyer’s agent to represent you in the purchase of your home. The nice part about the buyer’s agent is that they are more inclined to work towards your best interests than a seller’s agent might. That could save you a lot of money as well as your agent will try to help you get a better price on the home and also assist you in the negotiation process.

You will want to make sure that you interview a few real estate agents before deciding on whether or not one is going to become your buyer’s agent. You want to make sure that the real estate agent has enough experience to actually help you with what you’re trying to achieve. It’s tempting to feel pressured to just go with any agent because you feel that you’re running out of time, but that’s not really a good idea at all. It’s smarter to think instead about the type of agent that you want, and actually go from there.

It goes without saying that wrapping up a home purchase can be stressful, but it’s even more stressful when you’re not sure about how you’re going to take care of things. So let’s see if we can help you go about navigating the closing process without losing your cool, okay? Okay!

First and foremost, you should never be going blind through a closing. This means that you get some information about the costs associated with closing on the home. This should be given to you before you even put the contract on a home. This is called a Good Faith Estimate. Is it always accurate? Not perfectly, but it costs better close.

If you’re trying to educate yourself on the ins and outs of getting a home loan, then we’re happy to hear it. It can be pretty tough to absorb the large amount of information out there on actually getting a mortgage, but it’s well worth your time to take it in small pieces in order to make things easier.

For example, you might have heard the term “points” a lot. Points aren’t something that can be automatically dismissed as “good” or “bad” — it really depends on what your situation is and what you’re trying to accomplish. Simply put, points are a way of pre-paying your interest in exchange for a lower interest rate. This means that points can theoretically save you money, but that’s not the case all of the time.

An example is in order. Most people will be talking about discount points, which is what you’re paying to actually lower your interest rate. Every point translates to about 1% of the total principal of the loan. This means that points have a tendency not to be as cheap as you might assume. If you are paying for a 200,000 home loan, this means that you’re going to be looking at $2,000 per point, due at closing.

Now, keep in mind that you are not necessarily the one that has to pay these points. Your seller might be willing to pay for some of them in order to secure the home purchase. Many motivated sellers who are desperate to get out from under their homes will do this in order to make their home more attractive. Are you going to find that in a seller’s market? Definitely not. Yet it does happen — so make sure that you look around.

There are calculators available online that will let you see if paying points even makes sense over the long run. We suggest that you use them before you make any type of financial commitment. If you already see that your closing costs are going to be pretty high, you might do a lot better sticking with a higher interest rate and considering refinancing later down the road.

Overall, getting real information on mortgage points is pretty important, but we would like to think that we’ve covered the high points in such a way that you can move forward in your dreams of owning a home — don’t delay, keep going forward today!