Floor two

Articles that
show the arithmetic

Six pieces, each about one thing people get wrong about a mortgage, each ending at the calculator on this site that reproduces its numbers. No rates, no dates, no year in the title that will read as stale next January.

Start readingQuestions people actually ask
  • Investing
  • Refinance
  • Buying
  • Loan types

Floor two

All 6, newest first

Investing9 min readDSCR loans: qualifying the property instead of yourselfA DSCR loan underwrites the rent against the payment and ignores your tax return. That trade buys scale and costs you the Qualified Mortgage protections.Nadia KoszinskiRefinance8 min readHow to tell whether a refinance is worth itThe break-even month is the easy half. The hard half is the term reset, which is how a refinance cuts $296 off the payment and costs $34,000.Harriet VauxBuying8 min readHow much home can I afford, and which ratio decides itLenders apply two debt-to-income tests and only one binds you. Which one it is changes what you should do: clearing a debt can beat half a point of rate.Theo BrandtLoan types8 min readFHA or conventional: the mortgage insurance decides itFHA mortgage insurance does not stop at 80% loan-to-value — that is the conventional rule. What each programme's insurance really costs, on one house.Dev RamanathanBuying10 min readA first-time buyer's guide with the arithmetic left inThe order of operations for a first purchase, the cash you need beyond the down payment, and whether buying beats renting on your own numbers.Theo BrandtLoan types7 min readThe VA loan, and what the funding fee actually costsNo down payment and no monthly mortgage insurance. The VA loan's real price is a one-time funding fee whose tiers can differ by $7,500 on one house.Dev Ramanathan

Floor two

What was wrong with these articles before

These six pieces came from a shared template and were rewritten rather than tidied. Three of the problems are worth naming, because an article that is confidently wrong about a published rule does more damage than one that says nothing.

  1. FHA mortgage insurance was described as cancellable at 80%

    It is not. That is the conventional PMI rule, from the Homeowners Protection Act. FHA annual MIP runs for the life of the loan when the loan starts above 90% loan-to-value, and eleven years when it starts at or below. Correcting it changed the cost of an ordinary 3.5%-down purchase by a five-figure sum.

    Read the corrected article →

  2. An article was pinned to a calendar year

    The refinance piece was titled for a year and carried a rate table with a date on it. Both went stale the day they shipped and neither could be true of a lender that does not exist. It is now written about the arithmetic, which does not expire.

    Read the rewritten article →

  3. The articles claimed customers, volumes and speeds

    “Guided hundreds of first-time buyers”, “helped hundreds of military families”, “free, fast pre-approval”. A demonstration lender has done none of that. Every claim of that shape has been removed and the sentences around it rewritten rather than left dangling.

    What this site does not claim →
No live rates are published on this site. The interest rates used in the calculators are starting values you can change — placeholders chosen to make the arithmetic legible, not quotes, not an average, and not tied to any date.

Floor four

The calculator behind each article

Nothing in these articles is asserted without a page you can run it on. If a paragraph gives you a number, the calculator that produced it is a link away and takes your inputs instead of ours.

What would the payment actually be?Monthly Payment CalculatorPrincipal, interest, taxes, insurance, HOA and mortgage insurance, itemised.OpenWhere does each payment go?Amortisation ScheduleEvery payment for the life of the loan, month-wise or year-wise.OpenHow much house is defensible?Affordability CalculatorIncome, debts and ratios to a price range — and which limit binds it.OpenWhen does a refinance pay back?Refinance & Break-EvenNew rate against real costs, and the month the switch pays for itself.OpenWhat does paying extra buy me?Extra Payment CalculatorOne-off and recurring overpayments, against interest saved and months removed.OpenWhich one leaves me better off?Rent vs BuyBoth households on the same budget over a held period, with every assumption exposed.OpenWhat does FHA insurance cost over the loan?FHA Mortgage InsuranceUp-front MIP, the annual rate, and how long it really runs.OpenWhat is the VA fee on this loan?VA Funding FeeFirst or subsequent use, down payment tier, exemption.OpenAre discount points worth it?Points & Buy-DownWhat a point costs, what it saves, and how long you must stay.Open

Worked scenariosAll nine calculators