Some houses come with a loan attached that no bank will ever write again. A 2.75% loan. A 3% loan. Sitting inside a house that's for sale right now, and the next buyer can take it over.

When I ran our MLS, 26 active listings in Kentucky were flagged assumable. Out of roughly 4,500. Then I searched every listing's public description and private remarks for the word itself and found five more that never got the box checked. That's still only the ones somebody wrote down. Nearly half of every mortgage in America is under 4%. Most sellers have no idea their loan is worth something to the next buyer. So the deals aren't scarce. The labels are.

Which loans can move:

FHA: yes. The buyer has to qualify and live in the house.

VA: yes, and the buyer does not have to be a veteran.

USDA: yes, if the buyer meets the program's income and location rules.

Conventional: almost never. The one exception worth a phone call: some adjustable-rate loans after the fixed period ends.

FHA and VA assumptions are for people who'll live in the house. An investor buying a rental can't assume one.

The math: a $250,000 house. The seller has a 2021 FHA loan with $200,000 left at 2.75% and 25 years to go.

Take over the seller's loan: $922.62 a month (principal and interest)

New loan at 7.03%: $1,334.64 over 30 years, or $1,417.39 over the same 25 years

That's $412 to $495 a month. Over the life of the loan, the assumed 2.75% costs about $76,800 in interest. A matching new loan at 7.03% costs about $225,200. About $148,000 difference. Same house. Same buyer. Same week.

The catch: you only take over what's left on the loan. On that house you need to cover the other $50,000, plus a servicer fee (FHA caps it at $1,800) and closing costs. Three ways through it: a second loan behind the assumed one (VA has published rules allowing it; for FHA, confirm with the servicer deal by deal), the seller carries part of the gap, or cash, gift funds, or a lower price. And the assumed FHA loan keeps the seller's mortgage insurance. A 2021 FHA loan usually carries 0.85% a year, about $142 a month on $200,000. Put it in the math.

How to find the ones nobody flagged:

Anyone who bought or refinanced in 2020 or 2021 almost certainly has a rate under 4%.

Public records: an FHA mortgage carries an FHA case number, and a VA mortgage usually has a "VA Assumption Policy Rider" attached. That rider title is the fastest tell there is.

Just ask. Ask the seller for their mortgage statement. Loan type, balance, rate and servicer are all on page one. Then call the servicer's assumption department.

Four things that make it close:

Get the seller released. Approving the assumption and releasing the seller are two separate decisions.

Know the VA rule. If a non-veteran takes over a VA loan, the seller's VA benefit stays tied up until it's paid off. That belongs in the price. It never belongs in who you market to.

Build in the time. Servicers are slow. Write a 90-day contract with an assumption contingency and send a complete package on day one.

Advertise it the right way. "Seller's FHA loan may be assumable, subject to servicer approval and buyer qualification" is clean. Putting a payment in the ad triggers lending-ad disclosure rules. Never write "veterans only."

Anyone here closed an FHA assumption in the last year? What did your servicer's turnaround actually look like?