Credit Karma Home: Free Tools for Homebuyers

Credit Karma Home can match you with lenders and agents and offers powerful tools and calculators to make the home buying process easier and less stressful.

Buying a home is a stressful process. Real estate can cost a considerable amount of money. For many people, a home is the most expensive thing they’ll ever purchase.

Beyond the price, buying a home involves touring potentially dozens of homes, vast amounts of paperwork, and an intense mortgage process that can leave anyone exhausted.

Credit Karma has a suite of tools, called Credit Karma Home, that can help make the home buying process easier to help reduce the stress on you.

About the Product

Credit Karma Home offers a wide variety of tools and services that can help make the home buying process easier. This includes a list of lenders, agents, and calculators you can use to learn more about the price of homeownership.

Credit Karma Home integrates with the rest of your Credit Karma account so you can get customized recommendations based on your credit profile and history.

Product Features

These are some of the top features of Credit Karma Home.

Find Great Mortgage Rates

One of the most important things about buying a home is getting a mortgage. Few people can afford to pay for a house outright, meaning they’ll need to borrow money to afford a home.

The interest rate of a mortgage has a massive impact on the overall cost. A $100,000, 30-year mortgage at 3% costs $422 a month. At 4% interest, the same loan would cost $477, an increase of $50 per month and more than $18,000 over the life of the loan.

If you live in an expensive area where mortgages can run hundreds of thousands of dollars, a slight difference in interest rate can cost you hundreds per month.

Credit Karma Home can show you a list of potential mortgage providers and estimated interest rates based on your credit profile so you can easily compare rates and find the best lender for you. There’s no lengthy questionnaire to answer or the hassle of checking multiple sites.

One exciting perk for homebuyers is that you can get a preapproval letter from Credit Karma’s partner, Better Mortgage, without a hard credit pull. You can make your offers more competitive without the credit impact of going through the whole preapproval process with a lender.

Compare Insurance Options

Once you’ve bought a home, you want to make sure you protect it. Your house is likely your most valuable asset, so getting proper insurance coverage is essential and required by most lenders.

Credit Karma Home offers a dashboard that you can use to compare multiple insurance providers to find the policy and price that works best for you.

Find a Real Estate Agent

If you haven’t found an agent to work with yet, Credit Karma Home can use your account profile to match you with an agent in your area. The company partners with HomeLight, so you can see multiple agents and choose the one that works best for you.

Automated Savings Alerts

If you add your home to your Credit Karma account, Credit Karma’s Home Pulse Equity Tracker will automatically keep an eye on the value of your home. This makes it easy to see how much equity you’ve built as your home’s price fluctuates and you pay down your mortgage.

Based on your home equity, Credit Karma can alert you to savings opportunities, such as the chance to get private mortgage insurance (PMI) removed from your loan.

You can also enter information about your current mortgage, including the interest rate and monthly payment. If Credit Karma identifies a lender offering a better interest rate, you’ll receive an automatic alert to refinance your loan. Refinancing can lower your monthly interest rate and help you save money in the long run.

Calculators and Simulators

Credit Karma Home includes a variety of home buying and homeownership tools that you can use. For example, you can use the service’s affordability calculator to estimate the actual cost of owning a home and determine how much home you can afford.

There is also a refinance calculator that you can use to learn about how much money you’ll save by refinancing your loan.

Pricing and Fees

One of the best things about Credit Karma Home is that the service is completely free to use. You can set up a Credit Karma account without paying any subscription costs or other fees.

The company earns money when it refers its users to lenders, so everyone wins when Credit Karma matches you with a service to help you save money.

Using Credit Karma Home is easy. You can use many of the service’s tools, such as the rate search and calculators, without having to set up an account at all.

However, creating an account will unlock the service’s most powerful tools, including automatic refinancing alerts and the ability to refer you to specific lenders based on your credit profile.

To sign up, visit Credit Karma’s website and provide an email address and password. You’ll enter your full name, address, birthday, and the last four digits of your Social Security number. Once you’ve done that, you’ll have to answer a few questions about yourself so the company can import your credit history.

After that, Credit Karma will confirm your identity by asking about some of the accounts on your credit report. For example, if you just opened a credit card, it may ask you who issued the card.

Once you’ve finished confirming your identity, you’re ready to get started.

Mobile Accessibility

Credit Karma offers a mobile app for both iOS and Android, making it easy to access the company’s services while you’re on the go. The app has all of the features you’re likely to need, including an easy way to view your credit reports and the information available in Credit Karma Home.

You can also easily access your account through your phone’s web browser.

Bottom Line

Credit Karma Home is an excellent addition to Credit Karma’s credit monitoring tools. Using the information in your profile, Credit Karma Home can help match you to mortgage and refinancing opportunities tailored to your financial situation.

Given that the service is free to use, there’s little reason not to check it out.