re: How to find if a sellers home has an assumable mortgage?

Zillow has a keyword feature. Type “assumable” in there and any listing with that keyword will pop up.

ETA: there usually aren’t a lot with that although I suspect many people don’t realize their mortgage has this feature. As an example, there are only 6 properties in Austin that came up when I searched with that keyword

How do you know you want to assume it? It may have a terrible rate.

If the reason is that you are concerned you won’t qualify for a new mortgage, or at a decent rate, then assume it’s not assumable. The lender is almost certainly going to have to approve an assumption, and they won’t let a high risk buyer take over the loan.

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That said, I'm struggling to find if mortgages are assumable on the interwebs.

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Seems like you’re buying more house than you can afford.

Let’s say you find someone that wants to sell their house and they owe 100k at 2% with an assumable mortgage. Instead of putting 50 down and getting a loan at 6% interest, Hand the buyer 50k cash and assume their mortgage. If the loan allows it, why not?

I imagine if you qualified for the balance of the loan they would just loan you the money on a new deal.

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VA loans are assumable but the veteran loses the right to purchase another house with his VA benefit until the mortgage is satisfied.

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That is not necessarily true. You can have more than one VA loan out at the same time. It all depends on how much bonus entitlement you have available

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why would anyone want to assume a mortgage?

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When I bought my first house back in the '70's, 30 year home loan interest rates were about 10.5%.

We found a house we liked that had a 4 year old assumable 6.2 % loan. To assume the loan we had to put down about 30% of the house value. This was a great financial deal. The house note was just a little more than the apartment we were in.

Most mortgages have a Due on Sale clause, with a sale being a change in deed holder for any type of consideration.

With that in mind the answer to your question is that it is up to the one holding the lien... bank/mortgagee... and not the seller. You find out from the seller who holds the lien and then contact them directly.

I've been involved in a couple of these and, if the bank is up for it, can take a couple forms. A refinance at slightly higher interest rate (or straight fees to bank) or more rarely a pure assumption with some fees to the bank.