Editorial standards

Purchase Mortgage Loan publishes home-buying education for U.S. buyers. We are not a lender. These standards explain where our numbers come from and how we keep them accurate.

Official data only

• Loan limits: county conforming limits from the FHFA 2026 file and FHA limits from HUD's 2026 forward mortgage limits file.
• Local housing data: population, median home value, median household income and real estate taxes from the Census Bureau's American Community Survey (2019–2023 5-year estimates).
• Insurance: state average HO-3 homeowners premiums from the NAIC homeowners insurance report (2023 data).
• Assistance programs: each down payment assistance or hero program is checked on the administering agency's official website. We record the URL, a quote confirming the amount, and the verification date. Programs we can't verify are not published.
• Program rules: FHA, VA, USDA and conventional requirements are drawn from HUD, VA, USDA Rural Development, Fannie Mae and the CFPB.

No filler pages

Every location, salary and program page is built from real data rows. If we don't yet have the data a page needs, it is hidden from search engines (noindex) and left out of our sitemaps until the data exists.

Estimates are labeled

Payments, affordability and income-needed figures are estimates using clearly stated assumptions (rate, taxes, insurance, mortgage insurance) that you can edit in our calculators. They are not loan offers.

Authorship and review

Content is written by the Purchase Mortgage Loan Editorial Team. When a licensed mortgage professional reviews our content, their name, title and NMLS ID appear in the page byline and on their author page. We never invent reviewers or credentials.

Updates and corrections

Each page shows when its data was last updated or verified. Loan limits are refreshed when FHFA and HUD publish new annual limits; programs are re-verified periodically. To report an error, email support@purchasemortgageloan.com.

Independence

We earn money when buyers choose to be matched with lenders in our partner network (see partners). Partners do not influence our data, rankings or program listings.