You found the house, secured your loan, closed the deal and moved in. So you never need to pay attention to mortgage rates again, right?

Wrong! It pays to keep an eye on loan rates as they move up and down. A case in point:

In early September, the average rate on a 30-year mortgage ticked up a mere 7 basis points -- a basis point is 1/100th of a percentage point -- to 3.56%. That small increase meant the number of “high-quality” candidates who could have refinanced dropped from 11.7 million to 9.8 million, according to figures from Black Knight.

In other words, 1.9 million borrowers lost their financial incentive to refinance at a significantly lower rate.

A week later, the typical rate jumped to 3.73% and the number of refi candidates slipped by 1.5 million more borrowers, to 8.3 million.

Had any of those 3.4 million folks been following rates during that period, they might have been able to save themselves a passel of money: roughly $263 a month on average, the mortgage analytics firm reports.

In the last week of October, a slight 3 basis-point uptick cut the potential refi population down to 6.8 million. That’s a 30% decline from September, and a 42% decline from the all-time high of 11.7 million during the first week of September.

(Black Knight defines refinance candidates as 30-year mortgage holders with a maximum 80% loan-to-value ratio and credit scores of 720 or higher, who could shave at least 0.75% off their current first lien rate by refinancing.)

Nothing is more devastating to a homebuyer than to search for months and finally find the place they want, only to be rejected by their lender. But it happens. According to LendingTree, 1 in 10 would-be borrowers are turned down.

That’s the lowest level since 2004, but it still hurts if you are part of the unfortunate 10%.

Debt and credit history were the main reasons folks are denied. The amount of debt you carry compared to your income, aka your DTI ratio, is the biggest barrier to gaining approval. A third of all denials are because the DTI is too high. And a credit history pocked with late payments and bad debts is responsible for 23% of all denials.

Collateral, meaning the property isn’t worth what you are paying, is the third-highest reason for lenders saying no, followed by incomplete applications and unverifiable information.

LendingTree also found that denial rates vary by race, ethnicity and even geographical location. According to the report, African American borrowers now have the highest denial rate, at 17.4%, while non-Hispanic whites have the lowest, at 7.9%.

The government can go after lenders who don’t follow fair lending laws. Still, you can up the odds you’ll be approved by making sure your credit file is in order: Dot every “i” and cross every “t” in your application, and line up all the documents required to verify your earnings, bank accounts, tax returns and assets.

Here’s another reason to price your home correctly in the first place -- rather than pricing it high, hoping someone will bite, and lowering it when that doesn’t happen.

According to a Redfin study, newly listed houses get 3.4 times the attention online as those that drop their price.

The analysis found that a listing that’s viewed by 100 people on the first day is looked at just 17 times after it’s been on the market for 30 days. A price cut bumps that up to 29 views on the day the drop is posted, but the next day, daily views drop back to just 18.

Overall, Redfin found that online views drop off severely after the first day. On day two, views are half what they were on day one -- and after a week, just a quarter.

Are you “sleep divorced”? Turns out 25% of married couples are. That’s the percentage of husbands and wives who sleep in separate beds, according to a study by the National Sleep Foundation. And 10% of us sleep in separate bedrooms.

Professional Women in Construction, a nonprofit that supports women in construction and related fields, has given its first-ever award to a man -- Richard Wood of Plaza Construction -- for his role in helping the cause. Plaza is a construction management company.

Rises in median wages in the various construction trades outpaced those for all workers in 2018 by 3.2% to 2.5%, according to the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics tally. But the median wage rose even faster for roofers’ helpers (6.7%) and laborers (3.2%). Wages of plasterers, stucco masons, floor layers and tapers increased about 7%, while stonemasons saw their wages rise by more than 6%.

Good news for workers, but not homebuyers. And since subcontractor bids historically increase faster than construction wages, adding more inflationary fuel to housing prices, builders have little choice but to boost their prices to absorb the higher costs.

Finally, one more thing to ponder: For what you pay for the median-price house in San Francisco -- $1.196 million -- you could buy five median-price houses in the other 49 largest cities in the country, according to a LendingTree analysis. In Detroit, you could buy the equivalent of 23 houses!

Many -- if not most -- homeowners aren’t prepared for a flood, tornado or other natural disaster. And neither, apparently, are their insurance companies.

Take California, where the California Earthquake Authority estimates $175 billion in residential damage would result from a recurrence of the “Big One” that struck San Francisco in 1906. Yet only $15 billion in damage would be covered by insurance, warns the CEA, a private nonprofit that offers earthquake coverage to Golden State residents.

Created by the state legislature in 1996, the CEA says it is financially strong enough to cover all claims it receives, should a repeat of the super-catastrophic quake occur.

But the magnitude 6.8 quake that hit Northridge, California, in 1994 caused so much damage that insurers paid out more in claims than they collected in premiums over the previous 30 years, bringing many dangerously close to insolvency, according to the trade journal Insurance Business America.

Steven Steckler, president of the Sentry Claims Group in Louisiana -- an independent adjusting service -- says most, if not all, insurance companies have the resources to cover their insured clients’ losses, largely because only about 10 percent of all homeowners have earthquake coverage. We’ll come back to that shortly.

But there’s another problem: Should another major quake strike -- and they have occurred in 42 states -- there’s “no way” companies could put enough boots on the ground to assess owners’ claims and get them the money they need to begin repairs, Steckler says.

For one thing, there just aren’t enough adjusters. For another, there isn’t enough infrastructure to support them. In a major quake, roads and bridges will be destroyed, so adjusters won’t be able to reach people.

At the same time, “you can’t just show up,” says Steckler. “First, you have to have structural engineers check the integrity of the property. Until they put a tag on the door indicating a place is safe to enter, everything is at a standstill.”

Now, about the lack of coverage. Many people don’t realize that a standard homeowner’s policy doesn’t cover earthquakes -- or floods, for that matter. You’ll need either a rider or a separate policy to cover damage from a quake, and yet another separate policy to cover flooding.

But quake and flood insurance is expensive, Steckler says. The deductibles on an earthquake policy are so high -- anywhere from 5 to 20 percent of the coverage amount -- that claims are often less then the deductible amount, especially in expensive areas like California. Consequently, homeowners end up paying the cost to repair their homes out of their own pockets.

Worse, perhaps, some people don’t even know what’s covered by their policies and what’s not. Even when people have coverage, 18 percent have never bothered to read their policies, a recent study by ValuePenguin found. A third believe their homeowner’s insurance covers floods.

The Insurance Information Institute figures upwards of 4 million houses are uninsured, and that two-thirds of all houses are underinsured, some by 60 percent.

Meanwhile, homeowners aren’t prepared, either. Most don’t take the precautions necessary to protect their homes, like raising places in flood-prone areas or tying all joists together so houses act as one unit in quake-prone regions.

At the height of the hurricane season, which stretches from June to November, 3 out of 4 owners in the riskiest coastal states believed they were prepared for whatever Mother Nature sent their way, according to a survey by ValuePenguin, a LendingTree subsidiary. But less than half had taken any precautions.

Hurricanes are deadly in a couple of ways: The high winds knock things over, and the tremendous amounts of rainfall and storm surge cause flooding. According to the insurance institute, flooding is the most common and costliest of all natural disasters. The National Flood Insurance Program says 90 percent of all natural disasters in the United States involve flooding.

But flooding can happen for any number of reasons, not just big rains. Pipes sometimes burst, dams break or snow melts too rapidly. And damage from just a few inches of water can be expensive to repair.

Standard homeowner’s insurance is a package policy covering both damage to property and liability or legal responsibility for any injuries and property damage policyholders or their families cause to other people. This includes damage caused by household pets.

A standard policy covers 16 disasters or “perils,” but neither flooding nor earthquakes are on the list. Flood coverage is available through independent agents from the National Flood Insurance Program, or through some private carriers. Earthquake coverage can be added to your standard policy as an endorsement (aka a rider) or purchased as a separate policy.

To make sure you are covered during any kind of cataclysmic event, Steckler suggests looking for firms with a rating of “A-plus” or “Excellent” in the state where you live. These firms are the strongest financially, and do a good job investing their money, he says.

Another consideration is whether a company is “admitted” or “nonadmitted.” The former shares in a state’s guarantee fund, which will cover you if the company can’t meet all legitimate claims. The latter are large, standalone companies which, while there is no guarantee they will cover all claims, are often the only ones writing policies in high-risk areas.

Parents can take a number of steps to help their offspring purchase their first homes. They can donate money for a down payment, co-sign on a mortgage or pay off their student loans.

But Mom and Dad also can get in the way. For one thing, they can offer advice that was sound when they bought their own house years ago, but no longer holds water in today’s market. And they can insert themselves into the entire process, instead of letting Junior or Missy make their own decisions.

But worst of all, says Massachusetts real estate pro Dana Bull, well-intentioned parents can “steamroll” all their children’s ideas.

It’s not that adult children don’t want their parents’ input and advice -- they do, says Bull, who hangs her shingle with Sagan Harborside, a Sotheby’s International Realty franchise. But all too often, she says, parents “end up overstepping their bounds.”

Bull was 22 and working in the architectural field when she bought her first place, a condominium apartment in a circa-1784 house, with her then-boyfriend (now husband). Her parent’s didn’t approve: They had always purchased new homes, and worried that their daughter was making a big mistake buying such an old place.

“They were apprehensive,” Bull recalls. “They were concerned that the old structure could have plumbing and electrical issues, and that I was making such a major decision at such a young age. They also were anxious about the fact that my boyfriend and I were buying together: ‘What if things between us went south?’”

The couple went on to buy a number of properties together, and at age 25, she transitioned full-time into real estate. Now 30, she works with a lot of younger buyers, and says she often “feels like a therapist” when their parents become too involved.

She sees it mostly when Mom and Dad tag along during house-hunting outings, and again during the home inspection.

“The kids may love the house, but if the parents don’t approve, the kids freeze. All they really want is their parents’ approval,” Bull says. “The parents have good intentions, but their kids are adults who know what they want and they are fully capable of making their own decisions.”

As Bull sees it, “the best thing parents can do is to provide a framework so their children can make sound decisions.”

Parents need to realize that certain things are beyond their level of expertise, Bull advises. “They are far better off suggesting that the kids find experts in their respective fields. That means urging them to build a good team of real estate professionals, starting with their choice of agents and including solid, trustworthy lenders, home inspectors and possibly even lawyers.

“Having the right people who can advocate on your behalf about the things you and your parents don’t know much about is key,” the Massachusetts agent says. “Young buyers love the idea of Dad coming along on the home inspection, and they value his opinion. But the real expert is the professional.”

Stepping back isn’t easy for some parents, who often fear their adult children will make the same mistakes they did. But that’s the way “kids” of any age learn -- just the way Mom and Dad did.

Still, if you want to be in the picture -- and are asked to be -- then be involved from the get-go, Bull suggests. “Asking ‘Why didn’t you think about this or that?’ isn’t helpful, especially in the middle of the process. If you want to be part of the journey, do so from the beginning.”

There are any number of ways parents can help their children. But co-signing on a loan isn’t the best choice: If your name is on the mortgage, you are just as liable for the payments as your children. Consequently, if they should falter, you’ll have to make the payments, or your credit will be impacted.

If you can afford it, a monetary gift to help with or cover the entire down payment is a better option. But don’t make it a loan, even secretively. The lender will want a complete paper trail of where the money came from, and the borrower will have to state in writing that the money need not be paid back.

Far and away the best thing you can do for your children is to be sure they pay off their high-interest debt as quickly as possible before they even think about buying a house.

“If parents are going to help their children financially, they should start with high-interest debt that might be accrued during and after college,” says Thomas O’Shaughnessy, head of research at Clever Real Estate, a nationwide referral service that connects consumers to agents.

Clever’s research shows that 48% of undergraduates with student debt plan to delay homeownership by seven years. Moreover, they are eight times more likely to add a personal loan to their debt load, and seven times more likely to be using high-interest credit cards at the same time.

Worse, perhaps, 56% of college students don’t know the interest rates on their student loans. And most college students underestimate, by five years, how long it will take to pay off that debt.

So, while parents can help their children with some or all of their down payment or by joining them on a mortgage, O’Shaughnessy advises, they are far better off being certain the kids are in a financially stable place to afford their monthly mortgage payments.