How to Buy a Cheap House: 17 Smart Strategies for 2026

Buying a house is a core part of the American Dream, but given the increase in home prices and mortgage interest rates, buying a cheap house seems like the best (or maybe only) way to get there. But how do you buy a cheap house, especially when you don’t have a ton of resources to fall back on? Some are watching a parent lose a house in a divorce. Some have savings but no credit history. Some just want a place that's theirs without the debt keeping them up at night.

The median existing-home sale price hit $434,100 in July 2026, the 37th straight month of year-over-year price increases, according to the National Association of Realtors (NAR).[1] The 30-year fixed rate averaged 6.65% the week of August 20.[2] First-time buyers now make up just 21% of the market, a record low since tracking began in 1981, and the typical first-timer is 40 years old.[3]

If you’re trying to buy a house in this environment, remember that “cheapest" means three different things, and they often pull against each other. It can mean the lowest purchase price, the least cash you need to close, or the lowest cost to own over time. Most buyers chase the first when what they really need is the third.

The good news is that help is available. As of July 1, 2026, there were 2,746 homeownership assistance programs nationwide, a survey high, and 2,114 of them (77%) were active and funded.[4] We’ll discuss both levers — finding a cheaper house and spending less cash to buy one — so you can figure out which one is the best for you to pull.

What "cheapest" means

Before you pick a strategy, it helps to know which kind of cheap you're solving for. There are three, and a house can be a bargain on one while being a mistake on another.

• Lowest purchase price: A $250,000 fixer beats a $434,100 move-in-ready home on sticker price by a wide margin. Whether it beats it on total cost depends entirely on what the fixer needs.
• Lowest cash to close: This is about what you hand over at the closing table, not the price tag. A VA loan at zero down gets an eligible buyer into a home for closing costs alone. A conventional loan at 20% down on that same median home needs $86,820 for the down payment before you add a dollar of closing costs.
• Lowest long-term cost: This is the one that determines whether a house stays affordable. Put 20% down and your principal and interest run about $2,229 a month at 6.65%. Go in with an FHA loan at 3.5% down and you're at roughly $2,736 a month, plus about $195 in mortgage insurance, or $2,932 all in. Same house, same rate, a $700 monthly gap that lasts for years.

Those three definitions rarely point at the same house. The cheapest home to buy can be the most expensive to own, and the loan that gets you in the door for the least cash frequently costs you the most every month after that. Keeping the tension straight is what keeps you from solving the wrong problem.

Which strategy fits your situation

There's no single cheapest way to buy, only the cheapest way for your specific mix of cash, credit, skills, and flexibility. Most of the strategies below work for some people and are a trap for others. Here's a starting map.

One real limit before you get attached to any specific pathway: Most of these are thin slices of the market, not strategies you can count on. Distressed sales, foreclosures, and short sales combined were only about 2% of existing-home sales as of mid-2026.[5] That doesn't make them worthless. It means you plan for the mainstream path and treat the discount finds as a bonus if one lands.

Aaron Taylor, a licensed Realtor® with The Real Estate Guy team at eXp Realty in Las Vegas, frames the whole find-cheaper question well: the discount on a distressed property is really the market pricing in time, uncertainty, and effort, and the only question that matters is whether that gap is wide enough to be worth what you'll put in. Alex Hubler, a Realtor with JPW Realty in Maple Grove, Minnesota, adds a caution worth heeding before you chase a low price into a rough area: the price often reflects the neighborhood, not just the house, and a cheap home in a declining area can stay cheap for a reason.

Ways to find a cheaper house

These strategies work, but keep the 2% number in mind: They're a minority of transactions. Treat them as opportunities to watch for, not a plan you build your whole search around.

Work your network and your agent's off-market pipeline

Some of the cheapest homes never hit the open market at all. Let friends, family, coworkers, and neighbors know you're looking. You can also scan for off-market listings on home-buying websites and on platforms like Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist, where owners sometimes sell without hiring an agent.

The strongest networking tool, though, is a good local agent. Agents often hear about homes before they're widely advertised, including sellers who'd take a quick, below-market offer to skip showings and repairs. A well-connected agent has a pipeline you don't, and that pipeline is where a lot of deals happen. Clever’s vast network of experienced agents can help you find someone who gets buyers like you into the house of their dreams; take a short quiz to get started.

Target listings that have been sitting

Inventory is still tight. There was a 4.6-month supply of existing homes in July 2026, and the typical listing sold in 29 days.[1] So when a home lingers well past that, it's telling you something.

Ask your agent to pull listings that have been on the MLS longer than the local average. A seller who's watched weeks go by without a serious offer is often more willing to negotiate.

A house that won’t sell usually signals one of three things: overpricing, needed repairs, or an unpopular layout or location. None of those is automatically a deal-breaker. Each one is leverage. A knowledgeable agent can help you tell the difference between a hidden bargain and a money pit that's been sitting for good reason.

Foreclosures and bank-owned homes

Foreclosed and bank-owned homes can be real bargains, but set your expectations first: distressed sales were only about 2% of existing-home sales as of mid-2026.[5] This is a thin and competitive slice of the market.

When one does surface, the logic that wins is "buy the ugly, fix the expensive." Cosmetic problems scare off other buyers and cost little to fix; the real value is in a home whose bones are sound but whose mechanicals are shot. Greg Field, an Arizona real estate agent with HomeSmart and years of distressed and REO experience, closed exactly that kind of deal for a buyer capped at $310,000 while move-in-ready comps in the area were selling around $420,000. The home was a bank-owned property in Peoria that had sat vacant two summers, with a dead HVAC system and a green sludge pool that emptied showings in about 30 seconds. It closed at $285,000, roughly 32% below market and $25,000 under the buyer's own ceiling. They put about $35,000 into high-efficiency heat pumps and pool restoration and skipped carpet and paint entirely, walking in with instant equity and lower power bills. (Field's observations are Arizona-specific, and market conditions vary, but the allocation rule travels: spend on mechanicals, not cosmetics.)

Good places to start looking: government sites like the HUD Homestore and HomePath, free listing sites such as Zillow's Foreclosure Center, and subscription services like Foreclosure.com or RealtyTrac.

An experienced agent can help you evaluate the condition and, if they're well connected, may hear about new foreclosures before they list. For more, see our guides to the best foreclosure websites and how to find the right foreclosure home.

Short sales

A short sale happens when a lender agrees to let a homeowner sell for less than the balance owed on the mortgage. If someone owes $250,000 but sells for $200,000, they've come up "short" by $50,000, and the lender has to sign off on eating that gap.

You may have read that banks accept short-sale offers at 85% of appraised value, or even 50%. Neither number holds up, as a rule. There's no public discount formula, and the agents who close these deals don't agree on what happens in practice. What they do agree on is the mechanism: the seller's lender has to approve the sale, and its loss-mitigation team works off an appraisal and its own math, not a percentage anyone can promise you upfront.

Where the experts split is instructive because the disagreement is the real answer. Field is blunt that the deep-discount myth is false: "This myth that banks accept short sale offers at 50% of market value is totally false. Loss mitigation departments work strictly according to appraisal guidelines. They will not consider any offer below 85-90% of their appraised value." Hubler sees even less room in his Minnesota market, where he says short sales rarely sell under market value at all, because lenders require a minimum time on market and an arm's-length sale to force full exposure. Taylor's take, from Las Vegas, is that there's simply no standard percentage; every file gets evaluated on its own. Read those three together and the takeaway is clear: How much you save depends on the lender and the market, and the real answer is that nobody can quote you an exact number.

What you can count on is the cost of admission. Field describes roughly four months of waiting on an asset manager for approval, no repair credits, and a property sold as-is, which means a collapsed sewer line under the slab becomes your problem, not the seller's. A short sale buys you uncertainty, not a guaranteed discount. If you go in, understand appraised value versus market value and don't expect much room for contingencies.

Fixer-uppers with good bones

A home with a sound structure and roof but dated finishes can be one of the cheapest ways in, because the lower price lets you build equity as you improve it. A home with structural problems can drain you faster than a full-price move-in-ready house ever would.

Jonathan Culp, a design principal at Land Agency in Denver, walks buyers through a four-point field check before they fall for a low price. He's a residential design principal, not an inspector, so treat this as a first screen, not a substitute for a professional inspection.

1. Curb-appeal potential: Picture the finished project next to comparable top-grade homes in the area. Sometimes the discount doesn't survive today's construction costs, and the "bargain" pencils out to more than just buying the nicer house.
2. Structure: Water in the foundation or basement, cracks that show recent tearout, doors and windows that stick, sloping floors, and sagging rooflines all point to major settling. These are the expensive problems.
3. Electrical: A panel with only a couple of breakers, or old knob-and-tube wiring, means budgeting for a 200-amp service upgrade.
4. Plumbing: A clay sewer line running to the street, rusting cast iron, and water damage are the hidden costs that don't show up in listing photos.

That last point is where a cheap inspection pays for itself. Ryan Fitzgerald, founder of Raleigh Realty in Raleigh, North Carolina, points to a $250 sewer scope that saved one of his first-time buyers $10,000 by catching a line problem before closing. So before you buy any fixer, hire a professional inspector, get real contractor estimates, and build a repair budget with a buffer on top.

Field's warning from the money-pit side is worth keeping in mind too: sagging roofs, aluminum wiring, aging HVAC, and single-pane windows can bleed an older property dry, and those are exactly the costs a low sticker price tempts you to overlook. Our home buying checklist can help you keep track.

Financing the fixer: The FHA 203(k)

If a home needs work before it can pass a standard appraisal, an FHA 203(k) loan lets you roll the repair costs and the purchase price into a single mortgage, so you're not draining savings on renovations. The Limited 203(k) now finances up to $75,000 in repairs, raised from $35,000 and unchanged since 2005, with a rehab period of up to nine months. The Standard 203(k) handles bigger jobs: it requires at least $5,000 in repairs and a HUD-approved consultant, allows up to a 12-month rehab, and permits up to 12 months of mortgage payments in reserve if the home isn't livable during the work.[6] It even works on HUD-owned homes, including Good Neighbor Next Door properties, which we'll get to below.

A renovation loan isn't automatically the right move, though.

Culp offers a four-question go/no-go filter that turns 203(k) from a name you've heard into a decision you can make: 

1. Do you want to DIY to save money? Then a 203(k) isn't for you; it requires licensed, insured contractors.
2. Can you find a contractor who really understands HUD's 203(k) paperwork? Many won't take it on.
3. In a competitive market, will the seller reject an offer tied to slower renovation financing?
4. Are the repairs you have in mind even eligible under the program?

If those answers line up, a 203(k) can be the difference between affording a home and not. Field notes independently that the program exists precisely for structurally sound homes that failed appraisal on health-and-safety grounds, like a missing kitchen or no working heat, which is a useful way to think about whether your fixer qualifies.

Distressed and vacant properties

Beyond listed foreclosures, some of the cheapest homes are ones nobody has listed at all. Distressed properties, homes that have fallen into serious disrepair, sometimes belong to owners who can't afford repairs or have moved away and let the place slide. They may sell cheaply just to be rid of it.

Two ways to find them: "driving for dollars," where you target neighborhoods and look for signs of neglect, then reach out to owners directly, and hunting for pre-foreclosures where owners are behind on payments. Apps like DealMachine and PropStream do the legwork of the first approach without the actual driving. This overlaps heavily with the foreclosure strategy above, so treat it as one more channel rather than a separate plan.

Tax sales, sheriff's sales, and auctions

When a homeowner falls far enough behind on property taxes or mortgage payments, the property can end up at a tax sale, sheriff's sale, or public auction, sometimes at a striking discount. Buyers have reported picking up livable homes for well under market this way.

Be clear-eyed, though: this is usually an investor's game, not a live-in path, and the mechanics are strictly state-specific. Many states have a redemption period, sometimes several years, during which the original owner can reclaim the property by paying what they owe, so "winning" an auction doesn't always mean you get to move in. Auction purchases often require cash, come with no title insurance, and give you no interior walkthrough before you bid, which means you can inherit second-position liens or even occupants. If you're drawn to this route, read your state's statutes on redemption periods and lien priority before you put a dollar down, and consider talking to a real estate attorney first.

Move somewhere cheaper

The single biggest lever on price isn't a strategy, it's a ZIP code. Prices swing enormously by region, and buyers willing to relocate to a lower-cost metro, often in the Midwest or parts of the Rust Belt, can find sound homes for a fraction of the coastal median. NAR's chief economist noted that in smaller Midwestern cities, a $60,000 household income can be enough to buy a median-priced home.[1]

The trade-off is almost always the job market, so run the math on income, not just housing cost, before you fall for a cheap listing three states away. And here's a counterintuitive one worth knowing: building isn't automatically the pricey option. The median new-home sale price was $393,800 in July 2026, about $40,300 below the $434,100 median for existing homes inthat month.[7] Builders have been discounting to move inventory, so in some markets a new build competes with resale on price.

Are $1 houses real?

You've probably seen the headlines about homes selling for a dollar, and the question underneath them is fair: is that real, and is it a shortcut? The short version is that these programs exist, but the dollar is the smallest number involved.

Field puts it plainly: "A dollar home is not a discount property. It is a construction commitment surrounded by the back taxes, code violations, and municipal liens." In cities like Tempe and Phoenix, he notes, you're often required to bring service panels, water, and sewer up to current code, and if you miss the city's deadline to finish, you can lose the title entirely. Daniel Amodeo, president of Amo Realty, a national brokerage, describes the same reality from the other side of the country: "The purchase price might be only a dollar, but buyers are often taking on properties that have sat vacant for years and require extensive renovations before they're livable." He frames these programs for what they are: tools to encourage redevelopment and get abandoned properties back on the tax rolls, not a giveaway.

Land-bank programs come with the same catch. Many require you to rehab the property on their timeline, and if you fall behind, they can foreclose and take it back. Two agents on opposite coasts landing on the same warning should tell you what you need to know: a dollar house is a project with a deadline, not a bargain.

Ways to spend less cash to buy

If you can't find a cheaper house, the other lever is financing, which lowers the cash you need to get in the door. These paths won't drop your purchase price, and most trade a smaller upfront cost for a higher monthly payment. But for a lot of buyers, they're the difference between owning now and waiting years to save a 20% down payment.

FHA loans

FHA loans are the most common on-ramp for buyers with modest savings or thinner credit. You can put down 3.5% with a credit score of 580 or higher, which is $15,194 on the median home rather than the $86,820 a 20% conventional down payment would require. Scores between 500 and 579 can still qualify, but they require 10% down, or $43,410 on that same home.[8]

The trade-off is mortgage insurance. FHA charges an upfront premium of 1.75% of the base loan amount, which is about $7,331 here and gets financed into the loan rather than paid in cash, plus an annual premium (0.55% for most borrowers) that runs for the life of the loan when you put down less than 10%, adding roughly $195 a month. You'll also hear a 43% debt-to-income figure attached to FHA loans; treat it as a common benchmark for manual underwriting, not a hard cap, since automated approvals routinely run higher with strong compensating factors like reserves or a big down payment. For the full picture, see our guide to FHA mortgage requirements.

VA loans

If you're a veteran, active-duty service member, or an eligible surviving spouse, a VA loan is often the cheapest way into a home, period. There's no down payment and no monthly mortgage insurance, which is a rare combination.

The one real cost is a one-time funding fee, and the current rates (effective April 7, 2023 and unchanged for 2026) are 2.15% for first use with less than 5% down, 1.50% at 5 to 9.99% down, and 1.25% at 10% or more; a subsequent-use loan with under 5% down runs 3.30%.[9] One detail people miss: the fee applies to the loan amount, not the purchase price, and it can be financed rather than paid in cash. On a $434,100 loan, first-use, that's about $9,333 rolled into the balance. Sellers can also cover concessions up to 4% of the home's value.

The single biggest cost swing here is the exemption. Veterans receiving service-connected disability compensation, qualifying Purple Heart recipients, and some surviving spouses pay no funding fee at all, which wipes out the one meaningful cost of the loan. If you might qualify, confirm it before you close.

USDA loans

USDA loans offer zero down for buyers in eligible rural and many suburban areas, with a household income cap of 115% of the area median. The costs are modest: a 1.00% upfront guarantee fee (about $4,341 on the median home, and financeable), a 0.35% annual fee that works out to roughly $128 a month at the start and runs for the life of the loan, and a small $25 technology fee.[10]

USDA also allows up to 101% financing, meaning you can roll the guarantee fee in on top of the purchase price, and sellers can contribute up to 6% toward your costs. You'll need to occupy the home within 60 days. For a rural buyer, this can mean closing with barely more than your inspection and a small cash cushion at the table.

Down payment and closing cost assistance

This is where the most money gets left on the table, usually because buyers misunderstand how the programs work. There were 2,746 homeownership assistance programs nationwide as of July 1, 2026, a survey high, with 2,114 (77%) active and funded and 234 of them structured as grants, a category that grew 6% over the prior quarter.[4]

The confusion is almost always about structure, and there are three you need to tell apart:

• A grant is yours to keep, with no repayment.
• A forgivable second mortgage gets erased after you live in the home for a set period, often five to 10 years.
• A repayable second mortgage comes due when you sell or refinance, sometimes at a higher interest rate.

Plenty of programs labeled "grants" are in fact repayable seconds, which is why people get blindsided at refinance. Kristina Morales, a mortgage loan originator and Realtor with Loanfully, is direct about the gap between the pitch and the reality: as of mid-2026, strict income limits and purchase-price caps mean only about 20% of the first-time buyers she consults meet all the criteria, typical assistance runs $5,000 to $15,000, and with many programs you repay the full amount if you sell or refinance within three to five years. For a buyer with strong credit, she notes, standard conventional financing often ends up cheaper over a five-to-seven-year hold than an assistance program with strings attached.

Brett Johnson of New Era Home Buyers in Colorado adds a practical wrinkle worth planning around: assistance often arrives as a silent second at a higher rate, and administrative delays of up to 30 days can cost you a competitive deal if the seller won't wait. The lesson isn't to skip assistance; it's to ask exactly which structure you're getting before you accept it. Our guides to closing costs and the full cost to buy a house can help you run the comparison.

Good Neighbor Next Door and HCV homeownership

If you're a full-time law enforcement officer, a pre-K through 12 teacher, a firefighter, or an EMT, the Good Neighbor Next Door program is one of the deepest discounts in housing: 50% off the list price of HUD-owned homes in designated revitalization areas.[11] The catch is a 36-month sole-residence occupancy requirement, enforced through a no-interest, no-payment silent second mortgage; leave early and you repay a prorated share of the discount. You bid at full list price, weekly lotteries settle ties, you get one lifetime use, and you can't have owned residential property in the past year.

Here's the number that makes it remarkable: paired with FHA financing, the down payment on a Good Neighbor Next Door home can be as low as $100. If you finance repairs through a 203(k), the occupancy obligation extends to 42 months. For very-low-income families, HUD's Housing Choice Voucher Homeownership Program can also apply monthly voucher assistance toward a mortgage instead of rent, though availability depends on your local housing authority.

Habitat for Humanity and NACA

Two programs come up constantly among buyers who feel priced out entirely, and both deserve more attention than they usually get. Habitat for Humanity isn't just a volunteer homebuilding charity; qualified low-income buyers can purchase a Habitat home with sweat equity in place of a cash down payment and an income-geared mortgage that's often structured at 0% interest. The strings are resale restrictions and a right of first refusal that limit how much you can profit if you sell, which is the trade for getting in with almost no cash.

NACA, the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America, offers another well-known no-down-payment, no-closing-cost path with no requirement for private mortgage insurance, aimed at low- and moderate-income buyers. The real barrier with both programs isn't money; it's time. Expect a demanding application process, homebuyer education requirements, and waitlists that can stretch for months or longer. If you have more patience than cash, they can be among the cheapest doors into ownership that exist.

House hacking a duplex or small multi-unit

One misconception is worth clearing up before anything else: A duplex you live in isn't a second home or an investment property in the eyes of a lender. It's your primary residence, one property split into separate living spaces, and that distinction changes everything about the financing. It’s also one of the most popular forms of house hacking.

Because you'll occupy one of the units, you can finance a two-to-four-unit property as an owner-occupant with as little as 3.5% down on an FHA loan or 5% down on a conventional loan, far less than the large down payment lenders demand on pure investment property.[8] Lenders will also typically credit a portion of the projected rental income from the other units toward helping you qualify, so a tenant can effectively help you afford more house.

There's even an assistance angle: 962 of the 2,746 homeownership assistance programs, roughly one in three, support multi-unit properties, a category that grew 3% over the prior quarter.[4] That reframes house hacking from an investor move into something an assisted first-time buyer can reach.

The catch is that you become a landlord the day you close. As Field points out, living next to your tenants makes you a 24/7 property manager, and when the AC compressor dies at 2 a.m. in July, you're the one answering the door. Taylor adds the budgeting version of the same caution: Run your numbers on conservative rents and realistic vacancy, never full occupancy. And landlord-tenant law varies sharply by state, so learn yours before you sign.

Owner financing and rent-to-own

When traditional financing is out of reach, some buyers strike a deal directly with the seller. In owner financing, the seller holds the note and you pay them over time instead of a bank. In rent-to-own, a portion of your monthly rent credits toward an eventual purchase. Both can work; one buyer might rent for a few years and then buy through a private contract, another might negotiate needed repairs into a rent-to-own agreement.

The thing to understand is that these deals live and die on their contract terms, and they carry far less consumer protection than a conventional mortgage. There's no standardized underwriting, no built-in appraisal requirement, and if the paperwork is sloppy or the seller's own mortgage goes into default, you can lose everything you've put in.

If you go this route, have a real estate attorney review the contract before you sign, and lean on your state's housing resources. Our guide to finding rent-to-own homes is a good starting point.

Assumable mortgages

With rates near 6.65% as of late August 2026, assumable mortgages have quietly become one of the most valuable strategies on this list. FHA, VA, and USDA loans are assumable, which means a qualified buyer can take over a seller's existing mortgage, including a sub-4% rate locked in during 2020 or 2021. Inheriting a rate that low can save you hundreds of dollars a month for the life of the loan.

The catch is the equity gap. You still owe the seller the difference between their remaining loan balance and the agreed price, which you'll need to cover in cash or through a second loan, and that gap can be large on a home that's appreciated. Assumptions also require lender approval and tend to move slowly. But if you find a seller with a great rate and manageable equity, it's one of the few strategies that lowers your long-term cost rather than just your upfront cash.

What each path costs at closing

Here's the part no one lays out plainly: the gap between these paths, in real dollars, on the same home. Every figure below is calculated on the $434,100 median at 6.65% for a 30-year loan, as of August 2026. (The base price and rate both move; treat these as a current snapshot, not a quote.)

*Cash to close uses a 3% closing-cost illustration ($13,023). It's an illustration, not a quoted figure; your actual closing costs will vary by lender, location, and loan.

Look at the top and bottom of that cash-to-close column and the tension from the beginning of this article snaps into focus: the cheapest path to get in is often the most expensive path to own. A VA loan at zero down asks for about $13,023 at the table and costs $2,847 a month. A conventional loan at 20% down asks for nearly $100,000 up front but costs $2,229 a month. That's a $617 monthly difference, roughly $7,400 a year, for the same house at the same rate. Neither is "the cheapest." They're cheapest at opposite ends of the timeline.

One more line item people forget: a cash cushion beyond the down payment and closing costs. Casey TeVault, owner of Casey Buys Houses, recommends budgeting an extra 1% to 2% of the price for the surprises that always turn up, on top of whatever reserves your lender requires. Before you commit to any row in that table, run your own numbers through a home affordability calculator.

Cheap to buy isn't the same as cheap to own

A low purchase price tells you almost nothing about what a home costs to keep.

Walk through year one on a truly cheap home and you can see where the money goes: property taxes, which can jump after a reassessment triggered by your purchase; homeowners insurance, which runs higher and is harder to get on older or long-vacant homes; utilities on a place with no modern insulation or efficient systems; a maintenance reserve for the repairs an aging house guarantees; and the recurring charges that never stop, like HOA dues, mobile-home lot rent, and the occasional special assessment.

Jay Hurst, co-founder of Ribbon Home, points to the cost that catches new owners most off guard, and it isn't the interest rate. As of mid-2026, he says, the real shock is the escrow account: a payment that starts at $1,850 can climb to $2,150 in year two once the property is reassessed and taxes and insurance catch up. Amodeo's closing point on dollar homes applies to every home on this page: judge the deal on total cost of ownership, not the purchase price. The cheapest house you can buy and the cheapest house you can afford to keep are frequently not the same house, and the difference is where good intentions turn into financial trouble.

The bottom line

The cheapest way to buy a house isn't about chasing the lowest sticker price. It's about matching the strategy to your finances, your skills, and your tolerance for risk. For one buyer that's a fixer-upper with a 203(k); for another it's a low-down-payment loan that gets them in sooner; for a third it's relocating to a market where a normal income still buys a normal house.

One last thing, learned from the people who've been through it: don't let urgency choose your strategy. The biggest financial decisions made in a panic tend to be the ones people regret. Take the time to figure out which kind of "cheap" you're solving for, price the total cost of ownership before you fall for a low number, and get a professional in your corner who knows your local market.

If you don’t have a professional helping you out yet, Clever can introduce you to experts in your neighborhood who help buyers like you every day. Take a short quiz to get started!

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