Buying a home, the biggest financial commitment that most people will make in their lifetime, can be an arduous and confusing process before signing on the dotted line.

How do offers and counter-offers work? What’s escrow all about? How can the best interest rate be secured?

Along the way, buyers and sellers must worry about two other important pieces of the home-buying puzzle: the home inspection and appraisal.

They are not the same.

One ultimately protects the homebuyer; the other the lender.

Below we explain how each works, in hopes that it unravels the mystery, and the stress, behind each.

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