The whole library, in the order you'll actually need it

2026-08-15

Most people meet a mortgage in the wrong order. The paperwork arrives before the vocabulary does, and by the time you understand what an escrow account is, you have already agreed to one.

This library exists to fix the order. Every piece is free, none of it asks for your email, and you can hand any of it to a client, print it for an open house, or put it in your own newsletter without asking me.

Here is the sequence.

Before you look at a single listing

Two things decide what you can buy, and both take longer to change than people expect.

• How to get your credit ready for a mortgage - a six-week checklist. Six weeks because some of these moves take a full billing cycle to show up, so starting the week you write an offer is starting too late.
• Renting vs buying in the DMV - the actual cost comparison, including the parts that make renting look better than the internet claims.

If you are only going to read two, read those two. They are the ones where being early is worth real money.

Once you are serious

• Mortgage application document checklist - what an underwriter will ask for. Gathering it before you need it turns a stressful week into a boring afternoon.
• Closing costs explained - what the fees are, who pays which, and when each is due. This is the single most common surprise, and it should not be a surprise.

Under contract

This is the stretch where the calendar runs you rather than the other way around.

• Home buying timeline: contract to closing - week by week, what has to happen and who is responsible for it.
• Ten things not to do before closing - the short list of ordinary, reasonable-sounding decisions that have cost people their loan approval days before settlement. Financing a sofa is on it.
• Homeowners insurance explained, and condo insurance if you are buying a unit rather than a building. Condos are different enough to warrant their own piece, and the difference matters at closing.

The last two weeks

• Moving checklist: a four-week countdown - because the logistics of moving and the logistics of closing peak in the same fortnight, and neither one waits.

After the keys

The part nobody hands you anything for.

• Seasonal home maintenance calendar - what to do each season so small things stay small.

Why this is free

I am a loan officer. I would obviously like to be your loan officer. But none of this is gated, none of it collects your address, and none of it is conditioned on doing business with me, because material that is genuinely useful only when you convert is not genuinely useful.

Agents: this is yours to use. Print it, text it, put it in a newsletter, hand it out at an open house. If you would like the whole set carrying your name and photo instead of mine, that is a thing I do and it costs you nothing.

Questions about any of it, or about a specific situation the guides do not cover, my number is on every page.