iOwn30Days
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The 30-day readiness plan

Get ready to buy a home, one focused week at a time.

iOwn30Days is a free, step-by-step plan for the groundwork that comes before a purchase: your credit, your budget, your savings and your first conversations with lenders.

Thirty days to get ready, not thirty days to own. Buying a home usually takes longer than a month. This plan helps you start that process prepared.

Start the 30-day checklist Browse all six guides

The plan at a glance

Four weeks, one focus each. Every step links to a full guide.

  1. Week 1 · Days 1–7Know your creditPull all three credit reports and dispute anything that looks wrong.Read the guide
  2. Week 2 · Days 8–14Set a housing budgetFind a monthly payment you are comfortable with, closing costs included.Read the guide
  3. Week 3 · Days 15–21Map your down paymentSavings, gifts and assistance programs, and how lenders document them.Read the guide
  4. Week 4 · Days 22–30Prepare for lendersGather your documents and learn what pre-approval involves.Read the guide

Why “30 days”

Thirty days to get ready. Not thirty days to own.

Buying a home usually takes months, and the pace depends on things no website controls: your finances, your lender and your local market.

What thirty focused days can do is get the groundwork done, so that when you start talking to lenders and touring homes, you already know your numbers and the questions worth asking. That is all our name means, and we think it is plenty.

More about iOwn30Days

What iOwn30Days is

  • A week-by-week readiness plan you can start today
  • Plain-English guides grounded in official consumer guidance
  • Free to read, with no account or sign-up required

What it isn’t

  • A lender, broker, insurer or government agency
  • A prediction of loan approval, interest rates or timelines
  • Personal financial, legal or insurance advice

The guides

Six guides, in the order you’ll need them

Each guide covers one step of the plan in depth, opens with a short list of key takeaways and ends with links to official sources.

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Week 2 · Budget

Budgeting for Closing Costs

What closing costs cover, how to read a Loan Estimate and how to plan for cash to close.

5 min read

View the full guide index
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Editorial standards

How we write our guides

Homebuying advice is easy to find and hard to trust. These are the rules every iOwn30Days guide is held to.

Official sources first

When a guide explains a rule, such as when you receive a Loan Estimate or how to dispute a credit report error, it follows the published guidance of the federal agency responsible.

Plain English, no hype

We define terms the first time we use them. We never predict approvals, rates, prices or savings, because no one can know those for your situation.

Dated and reviewed

Every guide shows when it was last reviewed. Rules and programs change, and we revise guides when they do.

Corrections welcome

If something looks wrong or out of date, email info@iown30days.com. We check every correction request.