Bankrate follows a strict editorial policy, so you can trust that we’re putting your interests first. Our award-winning editors and reporters create honest and accurate content to help you make the right financial decisions.
Key Principles
We value your trust. Our mission is to provide readers with accurate and unbiased information, and we have editorial standards in place to ensure that happens. Our editors and reporters thoroughly fact-check editorial content to ensure the information you’re reading is accurate. We maintain a firewall between our advertisers and our editorial team. Our editorial team does not receive direct compensation from our advertisers.
Editorial Independence
Bankrate’s editorial team writes on behalf of YOU – the reader. Our goal is to give you the best advice to help you make smart personal finance decisions. We follow strict guidelines to ensure that our editorial content is not influenced by advertisers. Our editorial team receives no direct compensation from advertisers, and our content is thoroughly fact-checked to ensure accuracy. So, whether you’re reading an article or a review, you can trust that you’re getting credible and dependable information.
You have money questions. Bankrate has answers. Our experts have been helping you master your money for over four decades. We continually strive to provide consumers with the expert advice and tools needed to succeed throughout life’s financial journey.
Bankrate follows a strict editorial policy, so you can trust that our content is honest and accurate. Our award-winning editors and reporters create honest and accurate content to help you make the right financial decisions. The content created by our editorial staff is objective, factual, and not influenced by our advertisers.
We’re transparent about how we are able to bring quality content, competitive rates, and useful tools to you by explaining how we make money.
Bankrate.com is an independent, advertising-supported publisher and comparison service. We are compensated in exchange for placement of sponsored products and, services, or by you clicking on certain links posted on our site. Therefore, this compensation may impact how, where and in what order products appear within listing categories. Other factors, such as our own proprietary website rules and whether a product is offered in your area or at your self-selected credit score range can also impact how and where products appear on this site. While we strive to provide a wide range offers, Bankrate does not include information about every financial or credit product or service.
This July Fourth we may be celebrating independence from historically low mortgage rates and unusually strong housing competition. Here’s what you need to know about the mortgage and real estate landscape over the long weekend.
1. Mortgage rates are on the move
After falling to all-time lows this winter, mortgage rates have mostly trended upward through the spring. Now, experts say, they’re likely to keep inching higher over the coming months. Just how high they go though, will depend a lot on inflation. Either way, rising rates mean the mortgage market is probably going to be dominated by purchases again, rather than refis.
Read the story.
2. The housing market is leveling out
The most intense days of competition over housing seem to be behind us. Available home inventories are rising, which is taking the pressure off buyers who now have more options to choose from. Industry watchers predict this trend will continue through the summer and will mean this seller’s market will be slightly less seller-friendly. Prices are likely to remain high, however.
Read the story.
3. Limited pool of builders pushes up home prices
The building trades have a decades-long history of recruitment issues, and the dwindling workforce is making construction and renovation projects more expensive. Advocates say reversing the trend will require changing the way young people think about jobs in the industry.
Read the story.
4. Using your equity to pay for a remodel
One of the biggest advantages to owning a home is the ability to use the equity you accumulate toward other purchases. Many homeowners opt to reinvesting those funds back into the house by drawing on their home equity to pay for renovations or remodeling projects. Check out Bankrate’s guide for the best ways to do it.
Read the story.
5. Understanding LGBTQ rights in the housing market
The LGBTQ community has seen major gains in rights and recognition in the past decade, but many lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people still face discrimination from all sorts of sources. Knowing your rights when it comes to housing is crucial so you can stick up for yourself if someone is trying to pull a fast one.
Read the story.
Share