Editorial Integrity

Our mission

Buying, renting, owning, or selling a house involve some of the most important financial and lifestyle decisions that you can make. Our goal on the HomeLight Buyer and Seller Resource Centers is to provide you with the accurate, insightful information you need to make those decisions with confidence.

Content principles

Home sale transactions are confusing enough without anybody further muddying the waters. To ensure that you’re receiving the most credible and up-to-date information available, we’ve established content principles that are ingrained in every article on our resource centers. You can rest assured that our content is:

  • Accurate: HomeLight editors, writers, and editorial assistants work with mortgage, real estate, and legal professionals to ensure that what we’re telling you is correct and complete. All sources must be highly reputable and qualified to speak about the topic, and we work tirelessly to vet every story for factual accuracy and readability.
  • Independent: The editorial team at HomeLight is here to serve readers first and foremost. The product and sales teams at HomeLight have no influence over the article topics, scope, verbiage, or any other aspect of editorial content production. (Curious how we make money? We’ve explained how we do work with those teams below!)
  • Detailed: We’re committed to sharing everything we know about home sales and homeownership, which means we’re not afraid to go deep and really clarify what’s happening beneath the hood. After all, the more you understand, the better you’ll navigate your own home transaction someday (maybe soon)!

Content standards

Our content standards are what put our content principles to work! These are the guidelines we’ve put in place for each piece that appears on the HomeLight resource centers. By meeting essential benchmarks, our posts offer the insights you need to fearlessly navigate your own home purchase or sale — or elevate your homeowner knowledge!

  • Team of experienced real estate editors: HomeLight’s editors have a deep well of experience in the industry; they know real estate inside and out! Their expertise helps craft each HomeLight article from its inception to provide you with the detailed pieces of knowledge you need to solve your particular home transaction challenge. Our editors use AI tools to assist with content creation and to analyze and organize data.
  • Expert source interviews: It’s not enough to rely on the expertise of our editors. HomeLight writers and editorial assistants interview trusted experts, whether that’s a real estate agent from our extensive network of elite sales professionals across the country, a mortgage loan originator who sees hundreds of loan applications every week, or an outside authority who can explain the topic thoroughly and exactly.
  • Data-driven: Real estate represents an enormous financial investment, and we want to be as precise and reliable as possible. Our writers and content assistants are coached on what data are relevant to readers in their search for information, how to find high-quality data to help explain the landscape, how to identify a credible source, and how to explain and display those numbers so that you feel empowered, not overwhelmed.
  • Helpful beyond belief: We want to make sure that when the time comes to buy, sell, or maintain your home, you’re approaching the challenge fully prepared for the path ahead of you. That means we’re going to ask those additional questions and go the extra mile in every article. We’ll break down large processes into actionable steps, and point you to the exact tools required to complete a task. Leave no stone unturned!

… And now a word from our sponsor

By now, you’ve probably gathered that we love what we do because we’re passionate about real estate and homeownership. Another thing we get excited about? The products and services at HomeLight, which exist to help buyers and sellers solve problems and overcome hurdles in the process. 

So we do mention HomeLight products and services from time to time — along with recommending other items, such as cleaning or packing supplies. There’s a possibility we might earn some affiliate commissions from those external links, or send an interested reader to learn more about a HomeLight solution. If it works for you, fantastic! But if not, we hope you’ll continue to educate yourself during your home transaction journey with our library of resources. That’s why it exists!