Massive, often insurmountable amounts of student debt have prevented millions of otherwise qualified borrowers from obtaining financing to buy a house.

Of the 43 million Americans with education loans, roughly 17 million are in their prime homebuying years, according to the Education Data Initiative. But 51% of renters say those loans have kept them from becoming homeowners.

There are programs on the books to make your student debt go away, though -- or at least to rein it in, so it no longer stands between you and homeownership.

There are several federal education loan relief programs: One plan is income-driven, another is for public servants and a third is for people with medical impairments. And according to a recent Consumer Financial Protection Bureau survey, 1 in 10 people who applied for relief with these programs were successful in having the debt discharged, canceled or forgiven.

You can access information and apply for relief on your own at studentaid.gov. But the applications are so full of legalese that you might want to enlist some experts who work with would-be homebuyers every day: people like Cat Kaiyoorawongs of LoanSense and Sara Parrish of CampusDoor. Kaiyoorawongs works with those who have government-backed student loans, while Parrish works with folks with private education loans. (About 93% of all student loans are federal; the rest are private.)

For starters, they say, you shouldn’t give up on owning a house. About 37% of all first-time buyers have student debt, the Education Data Initiative reports, so there is a way. But because of the all-important debt-to-income ratio, those with student debt have an average of 39% less buying power on their first houses than those without.

LoanSense tries to help buck that trend, working directly with consumers as well as mortgage lenders. Customers who are successful in reworking their student loans have lowered their payments from $650 to $350 a month, says Kaiyoorawongs, and raised their homebuying budgets by an average of $50,000 to $80,000 in the process.

One way to accomplish that is to consolidate your loans. While the average balance of student debt is $29,400, Parrish says that the borrowers CampusDoor sees typically have three separate loans with a total average balance of $64,000. And some have more than that.

By combining all your loans into one, you could trim your overall interest rate, at least temporarily, and increase your loan’s term. The monthly payment on the consolidated loans could be low enough that you will be able to qualify for a mortgage.

Beware, though: Refinancing or consolidating federal loans through a private lender results in the loss of important federal protections.

Another possibility is the Income-Based Repayment Plan, which expressly allows for federal loan forgiveness after 20 or 25 years of regular on-time payments. Sometimes called the Income-Contingent Repayment Plan, it bases your payment on your income and the size of your family.

To qualify, borrowers need to first consolidate all their student loans and then certify their earnings and family sizes. You’ll have to recertify annually, but the payment plan could be low enough that you qualify for a mortgage. Better yet, after 25 years, Uncle Sam will forgive whatever balance is left, which is most people’s objective, says Kaiyoorawongs.

For debt owners who are public servants -- anyone who works for local, state or federal government; works for a nonprofit organization; or serves in the Peace Corps, AmeriCorps or the military -- you may be eligible to have your loan balance forgiven if you have worked full-time for 10 or more years.

To qualify, you must have made a total of 120 qualifying monthly payments under a federal income-driven repayment plan. The payments need not be consecutive, though, and neither does the time worked as a public servant.

Two more options: extended and graduated repayment plans. An extended plan pushes your payments out to 25 years, thereby decreasing your monthly payment. But your balance will not be forgiven. With a graduated plan, your monthly payment starts low and then increases every two years. If you consolidate several loans under such a plan, you can have up to 30 years to pay off your debt, making it a good choice if you expect your income to keep growing.

People with total and permanent disabilities who are unable to work are eligible to have their student loans discharged. Moreover, the forgiven amount is tax-free -- at least for now. That provision is up for renewal soon.

Finally, if you believe your school misrepresented or made false promises about your degree or certification program, you may be able to have your loan balance discharged under the Borrower Defense program. Currently, though, the program's rules are tied up in court.

For those with private education loans, the options are far greater and more varied. Parrish says CampusDoor, which works through lenders and not directly with consumers, supports more than 1,600 unique programs offered by dozens of lenders, who have assisted more than 2.2 million borrowers along the way.

The Department of Justice has warned buyers not to sign contracts binding them to the agent showing them houses. And maybe they shouldn’t. But sellers should also be leery of signing listing agreements that tie them to one brokerage firm for months at a time.

For example, sometimes a seller finds a buyer on their own, with no help or input from the listing agent. In traditional contracts, the agent has the exclusive right to sell -- meaning that they are still owed a commission, even if they didn't find the buyer.

If you intend to proactively work to sell your place while it is listed in the multiple listing service, you may want to consider an exclusive agency agreement instead. You'll still work with a listing agent, but if you find the buyer, you'll have the right to sell without paying a commission.

Sellers also might want to consider the type of deed of conveyance they provide, says Martin Segal, a lecturer at the University of Miami who writes the popular Ask Doctor Law blog.

Rather than warrant the entire chain of ownership, how about a special warranty deed that only guarantees a clear title during the time you owned the place? That gets you off the hook for unknown defects that occurred when you were not the owner.

While it's doubtful that a buyer would accept it, you can also offer a quit-claim deed, which conveys title without any warranties whatsoever.

Property taxes are the largest discretionary source of revenue for local governments, and tax assessors usually try to maximize the valuations of houses within their purview. But not so when it comes to their own residences, according to a working paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

The “Assessing the Assessor” paper, which has not yet been peer reviewed, finds that assessors tend to rate their own properties “at significantly lower values” than those of their neighbors. Consequently, say authors Huaizhi Chen of the University of Notre Dame and Lauren Cohen of Harvard Business School, their tax bills “grow significantly slower” than their neighbors' do.

The paper also finds that the lower the value assessors assign to their own houses, the more likely other homeowners within the county are to sell their homes below their assigned taxation values. In other words, the lower the assessor's assessment, the less others will profit from the sale of their places.

Finally, the paper documents “a significant connection” between the under-assessment of assessors’ own properties and the tax-maximizing assessment gaps documented in the districts they operate.

Worrisome trends:

-- Renter households have formed faster than owner households for the past four quarters, as homebuilders have been unable to keep up with demand. But even if they could, the cost of buying is rising faster than the cost of renting. Owner households now number 86.9 million, according to data collected by Redfin. But the number of renter households hit a record 45.6 million in the third quarter of 2024.

-- The incoming Trump administration’s vow to deport illegal immigrants could slow builders' ability to construct houses. According to the latest Census Bureau stats, the number of immigrants joining the construction industry rose to nearly 130,000 in 2022. There’s no telling how many of those entered the country illegally. But in a business with persistent labor shortages, kicking out any gainfully employed immigrants will slow down the construction process -- probably considerably.

-- The percentage of “defective” mortgages -- those on which borrowers lie or otherwise supply bad information -- is low, but rising, according to quality control analytics company ACES. Less than 2% of all approved loans have issues, the company says, but the number is trending upwards. Most errors in this year’s second quarter were about borrowers’ incomes and employment, but applications with faulty appraisals saw the most significant quarter-to-quarter increase.

Ground has been broken outside of Atlanta for what the builder claims will be the largest zero-energy community in the country.

Located in Marietta, Georgia, the GreenHouse community will have 591 houses, all of which will be built to the Department of Energy’s Zero Energy Ready standards.

The builder is Beazer Homes, a company that has promised to build every one of its properties to high energy-efficient standards. Based in Atlanta, Beazer currently has 12 projects in various stages of development in the metro area, each of which offers Zero Energy Ready houses.

At GreenHouse, the houses' renewable energy systems will be so efficient that they could offset most, or all, of the home’s annual energy use, the company says.

The National Flood Insurance Program is working on allowing policyholders to pay their premiums on a monthly basis. Previously, premiums could only be paid annually.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency, which operates the program, is in the process of allowing both new and existing customers to pay monthly. The change won’t impact policy terms, just the payment schedule.

Policyholders who escrow their flood payments along with their property taxes and homeowners insurance are not eligible. But everyone else, at the time of application or renewal, will soon have the option of paying annually or monthly.

There will be no extra fees to pay monthly, but once you have selected a payment plan, you cannot change it during the policy’s term. However, federal law requires FEMA to charge certain fees, surcharges and assessments, and those charges will be collected upfront at the start of the policy’s term. For monthly payers, they will be collected with the first payment. Then, it will be the premium only for the next 11 months.

FEMA says it is working with all NFIP insurers to offer the monthly option as soon as possible.

Folks wondering what their homes might be worth if they made certain improvements will find a new tool from Revive helpful. Its artificial intelligence tool, called After Renovation Value, is now open and free for anyone to use.

Revive already works with real estate professionals to provide the guidance, contractors and funding that sellers need to make strategic presale renovations. Now, the ARV tool can estimate current value and reveal a property's untapped potential -- ensuring that sellers don’t leave money on the table by failing to bring their properties up to snuff. The tool also includes a neighborhood property condition analysis.

The program has gone through months of rigorous testing to ensure accuracy and reliability, the company reports. More info can be found at www.revive.realestate.

Speaking of renovations, you might want to think twice about remodeling if you plan to stick around awhile. According to a new study from Clever Real Estate, just under half the owners queried who had undertaken a project within the last five years liked their places better before the work was done.

Clever, which matches real estate agents with local buyers and sellers, actually found a bunch of negatives around remodeling:

-- Three in four owners went over budget on their last project, with nearly half exceeding it by at least $5,000 and a third going at least $10,000 over.

-- Of the about 3 in 4 homeowners who regretted remodeling in the past five years, 1 in 4 regret spending too much and 2 in 5 gripe that the renovation took too long.

Food for thought.

If you do undertake major improvements, don’t forget to tell your insurance company so your coverage can be adjusted accordingly. Many people don’t, according to a new survey by Nationwide.

Homeowners may not realize that taking on big projects could impact their insurance, says Casey Kempton, president of the insurer’s personal lines division: “We always recommend consulting with an insurance agent before diving into any major DIY renovation to ensure that all potential risks are covered.”

The poll found that 55% of owners who completed large-scale renovations within the past two years “have not adjusted their insurance policies, leaving themselves at risk of being underinsured.”

Homeowners should not wait to update their coverage until the project is completed. Do it before the work starts, so everyone will be covered.

I hate it when researchers come out with reports on the "best day to buy a house" or list one for sale. I am not going to name names, because these companies normally produce solid research, but studies about the "best day" are bogus -- pure and simple.

One recent study says the best day to buy is Dec. 5 -- but anyone who settles on that date would have signed their purchase contracts 30 to 60 days earlier. No one, not even the best researchers, can say with any accuracy what the best day to buy is, because sales only become part of the record when they go to settlement.

Building lots are in short supply in many major markets, but more sites are on the way. According to home marketing and research firm Zonda, lots under development are up more than 21% from the end of 2023.

Unfortunately, most new buildable sites are in the excavation stage -- the beginning stage of development -- and won’t be delivered until early spring at the earliest.