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Editorial Standards

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First a brief history. I created The Truth About Mortgage all the way back in 2006.

My mission statement continues to be helping prospective home buyers and existing homeowners navigate the home loan process.

One day at work in the early 2000s, the thought came to me. At the time, I was employed by a mortgage lender and often heard the same questions being asked over and over again.

I realized there wasn’t a good place to find basic information on mortgages. That was my lightbulb moment to take what I knew and share it with the world. And hopefully avoid hearing the same questions get asked more than once!

Over the years, I have crafted thousands of pages of content focused solely on mortgages, home buying, and the housing market.

And in the process, The Truth About Mortgage has become one of the top resources on the internet with millions of visits.

I am fully dedicated to demystifying mortgages and that is what you will find when exploring my website.

My Editorial Process and Quality Standards

Knowing mortgages are a very important and complex subject, I have carefully and tirelessly created the content on this site to ensure it is of the utmost quality.

That means being accurate, thorough, honest, remaining objective (despite having opinions that I openly share), and simply ensuring it’s helpful.

And perhaps most importantly, getting information direct from the source, whether it’s Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the FHA, the VA, or private companies like First American, ICE, Redfin, or Zillow.

This is especially important in today’s day and age where misinformation and even disinformation is rampant.

My specialty is taking complex subjects and making them more approachable and easy to understand. And when possible, sprinkling in some humor as well!

I have been the ONLY author of this website since its launch nearly 20 years ago, despite receiving numerous requests from outside writers to contribute.

My reluctance to employ external authors stems from my quality standards, which only exist because I am the sole contributor with full control over what is published.

Instead of relying upon so-called personal finance writers who may have zero background in mortgage, I trust my own direct-hand knowledge having worked in the business.

I have also written about mortgages for nearly two decades and have kept my finger on the pulse of the industry since then.

Each day, I read about the housing market, the latest mortgage news, and lender and agency announcements to ensure I don’t skip a beat, miss anything important, and stay current.

Throughout the years, renowned journalists have reached out to ask me questions and get my insights.

My own work has also been featured in many top publications, including Yahoo! Finance, Newsweek, U.S. News and World Report, Zillow, and countless others.

FYI, I do NOT use AI to create any of my content and have no plans to do so. It is all written by hand using my own brain, which is the only thing I trust.

Here’s another fun fact; the stock art you see accompanying my articles is often my own from the many years I took photographs in the early 2000s. You can see my Flickr account here if interested. Feel free to reach out if you want to use an image for your own site or project.

How I Get Compensated

Like many others, this website relies upon advertising to make money. I’ve put in countless hours (over multiple decades) to craft thousands of pages of quality content.

But I don’t sell anything directly nor do I work for a bank or mortgage lender. I am NOT a loan officer or a mortgage broker. I was an account executive in the early 2000s though.

The way I receive compensation from this blog is via third-party advertisers. If you click on one of the ads on my site or fill out a lead form, I may be compensated as a result.

Interestingly, this allows me to remain objective because I’m not captive to a specific company and its interests.

For example, I don’t work directly for Bank A or Bank B, and as such my opinions aren’t dictated by them.

This means I can speak freely about loan products or programs without any bias.

In addition, I don’t accept offers from companies to write about their products in exchange for any sort of compensation.

Simply put, I choose what I want to write about, nobody else does. If I find a company, product, or topic interesting, I’ll cover it. If not, well, I’ll probably skip it.

But either way, I will do my best to ensure it is an accurate representation written in good faith.

You Make Your Own Decisions

As noted, the goal of this website is imparting knowledge, specifically financial empowerment via education.

In short, the more informed you are on a subject, the better the potential outcome (I hope!).

At the end of the day, there are many choices a home buyer or existing homeowner will need to make on their journey.

This includes important decisions like product choice (ARM vs. fixed-rate loan), lender type (broker vs. bank), to buy or to rent, and lender selection in general.

Due to the complexities of mortgage lending, what works for one individual may not work for another. And two borrowers could have a completely different opinion about the same exact lender.

Realizing this, I do my best to objectively explain products, loan programs, loan types, lender options, and so on. And then let YOU decide how you want to proceed.

My goal is simply to educate and inform with facts, and hopefully empower better choices and outcomes.

But those choices are still YOURS to make. My website is but one tool of many to perhaps assist in that decision making.

It requires readers to put in the work though. And mortgages require a lot of time and thought with so much at stake!

Ultimately, my job is just to continue to create quality content, hope it gets read, and in turn provides some sort of value when you make your own decisions.

If you have comments, questions, general feedback, etc., feel free to reach out. I’m happy to respond via email or even social media if that’s your preference.

Or begin exploring my content by checking out the mortgage 101 page.

Thanks for reading and supporting my site!

Colin Robertson

Colin Robertson
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