Guides

The operational guide to buying property with a partner, friend, sibling, or parent — credit and DTI mechanics, title vesting, a clause-by-clause co-ownership agreement, and how the exit actually works.

71 min read

A month-by-month plan for the year before you buy: what to do in each phase, what never to touch, how to document every dollar, and how to survive closing day.

77 min read

How rental-property loans really work — down payments, the LLPA rate premium, reserves, house hacking, DSCR loans, and the return math, with every number worked out.

62 min read

The exact scripts, sequence and timing for getting a lender to cut your rate and fees — plus how to use TRID tolerance rules when the Closing Disclosure doesn't match.

61 min read

A triage system for a denied mortgage: get the real reason in writing, sort it into a 30-day, 90-day, one-year, or wrong-lender fix, then act on it.

68 min read

Rate-and-term, streamline, cash-out, recast, or nothing — worked numbers for every path, the real FHA and VA streamline rules, and the 3-day right to cancel.

78 min read

How underwriters actually turn your tax returns into qualifying income — the two-year rule, the add-backs most borrowers never claim, entity-by-entity treatment, and when non-QM makes sense.

64 min read

Non-renewed, cancelled, or declined: read the notice correctly, stop force-placed insurance, fix the reason code on it, and get the house insured again in 30 days.

95 min read

The exact sequence to run when your house is damaged — mitigation, documentation, the claim call script, the adjuster visit, reading the estimate, and every escalation step in order.

81 min read

How to verify one specific rental deal: audit the seller's pro-forma line by line, comp a real rent, reassess the tax, age the systems, and price the offer the numbers actually support.

90 min read

Set up basis correctly, claim the depreciation you are owed, survive the passive-loss rules, and know what the sale will cost — with every figure tied to the statute.

44 min read

What moving actually saves, on your own income mix rather than a headline rate — and how to establish domicile so the state you left cannot follow you.

33 min read

Which account to draw first, priced. The three cliffs a withdrawal can cross without warning, the conversion window almost nobody uses, and why the order is the last big decision you can still change.

34 min read

What it actually costs to hold property in an IRA — UDFI computed at trust rates, the prohibited-transaction list stated precisely, and an honest account of when this is the wrong structure.

33 min read

One number, in writing, itemised — and the scripts that get it. Every line a dealer can add, which of them are negotiable, and what your own state's tax rules do to the total.

36 min read

Build the inventory, find the one number that decides everything, cut your rates with scripts that work, and run the consolidation comparison honestly — with every figure computed.

40 min read

Budget on the floor, pay yourself a fixed draw, and size the buffer on the worst ordering of your months — not the average. Computed, with the arithmetic shown.

39 min read

Convert every offer to take-home before you answer, match offers across state lines, and counter with scripts that work — with the arithmetic computed rather than asserted.

34 min read

Self-employment tax is 14.13% of profit, not 15.3%. Price your rate, reserve on receipt, hit the safe harbour, and know when an S-corp is worth it — computed, not asserted.

39 min read

Five gates, in order, each with a number you can compute. Includes the 50-state break-even table built from each state's own property tax, insurance and appreciation — and why that table is not a forecast.

39 min read