Finding them

How to find assumable listings

There's typically no search filter to find assumable loans. Real estate portals can't see these deals, because nothing in the listing that reliably says whether the home carries an assumable loan. Even if they did, you wouldn't know if it was a good deal regardless. Finding assumables isn't a matter of searching harder, it's a matter of having the right tools and loan data.

Why they stay hidden

Nothing about a mortgage reaches a listing on its own. Whether a home has an assumable loan has to be typed in by the listing agent, usually into the public remarks, and most of the time nobody thought to ask the seller. Plenty of sellers don't know either.

So searching a portal for the word "assumable" finds a fraction of what's really there. In the markets we can measure, it isn't unusual to find 20x more assumable listings than the remarks mention. The homes are on the market, but the assumable loans are invisible.

That's a data problem rather than a market problem, and it's being slowly fixed. We helped author the assumable loan fields into the industry's data standard, RESO Data Dictionary 2.2, so the information finally has somewhere to live besides a sentence an agent may or may not write.

How these loans got into the MLS standard

Map of homes for sale with RetroRate pushpins marking the listings that come with an assumable loan

The standard, in full

Watch the assumable loan standard presented at RESO

How the standard got written

Where people look

What each way of looking actually finds

Where you look	What it shows you	What it misses
Portal keyword search	Listings where someone typed "assumable" into the keyword search box	Misses nearly all of them because the assumable loan was never captured by the listing agent
An MLS "listing terms" field	Whether the seller will entertain an assumable offer	Whether the home actually has an assumable loan, which is a different question
Asking the listing agent	A real answer, if they know	Every home you didn't think to ask about, and all homes where the owner and listing agent didn't know to begin with
Loan data	Every home carrying an FHA or VA loan, whether or not anyone mentioned it	Nothing, in coverage terms. It's a question of how current and how accurate the data is, and it won't tell you how good a loan is

The "listing terms" field was never meant to flag an assumable loan. It was built to record financing a seller would accept, which is why searching it is misleading rather than merely incomplete.

Three ways to find more assumable loan information

Look up market statistics

Every state, city, and ZIP in the country, with how many assumable loans are there, the average rate, and the payment difference. Free to use and no account needed.

Open the Assumable Atlas

Spot them while you browse

A free Chrome extension that marks the listings carrying an assumable loan on your favorite real estate sites, with the payment beside a new loan at today's rate.

About the VHS extension

Work with an agent who has the data

Agents using RetroRate see every assumable listing in their market, ranked by RetroMatch™, our score for how much a loan could save a buyer, before it comes up in conversation.

What agents see

What to do when you find one

While it's a great start, and it means a listing agent understands assumables, a rate in the remarks isn't a rate you can necessarily count on. Loan details get copied from memory, from an old statement, or from what someone remembers being told at closing, and a payment comparison built on the wrong rate is misleading.

Ask your agent whether the loan has been verified. On a RetroRate Verified listing the seller's mortgage statement has been cross-referenced against a variety of data sources and the result issued as a Verification of Loan (VOL) report, so the rate, the balance, and the remaining term are confirmed numbers rather than claims.

How verification works

What it looks like from the agent's side

RetroRate is a fresh, practical tool that adds real value for our agents and their clients. If a loan is assumable, RetroRate does the math and shows what it would look like for a buyer to take over that mortgage. This matters because today's higher interest rates can feel like a major barrier for buyers. RetroRate equips our agents with more data than ever before, helping them guide clients with clarity and confidence. For us, RetroRate is a smart way to open up new possibilities in today's market.

Mark McDonough, Owner/CEO, Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate Winans

Start with the listings you're already looking at.

The extension marks the ones with an assumable loan as you browse, free.

Get the VHS extension

The comparison between assumable listings and what the public remarks mention is RetroRate's own production data, from the markets where we have listing coverage. Our loan data comes from public property records, county records, servicing records, and MLS information, and covers all 50 states. On-market counts are published only where we license listing data.

RetroRate is not affiliated with or endorsed by Zillow, Redfin, Compass, or Realtor.com.

RetroRate does not originate loans, determine or extend credit, or engage in lending or mortgage brokering. The original lender or servicer who holds the mortgage handles qualification and approval of new buyers and makes the final decision to extend credit.