Methodology

1. Source hierarchy

Substantive claims about conventional mortgages must be traceable to a primary, official source. We use the following hierarchy and prefer the highest tier available for any given claim.

1. Statute and regulation. The U.S. Code, the Code of Federal Regulations, and Federal Register notices — including CFPB Regulation Z (12 CFR §1026) and Regulation B (12 CFR §1002).
2. Federal agency guidance. Publications and data releases from FHFA, CFPB, HUD, and VA Home Loans for comparative context.
3. GSE seller/servicer guides. The Fannie Mae Selling Guide and Freddie Mac Single-Family Seller/Servicer Guide and their dated bulletins and announcements.
4. State regulator and NMLS records. NMLS Consumer Access and state financial-regulator publications.
5. Peer-reviewed research and official statistics. Cited by name and publication date when used.

Secondary write-ups (news, competitor guides, aggregators) are never treated as authoritative for a mortgage claim. If we cannot locate a primary source for a specific statement, the statement is qualified, marked as unverified, or removed.

2. Update cadence

Every published source in our registry carries a publisher, an effective or published date where verifiable, a last-checked date, and a list of affected routes. Our Living Source Tracker is generated from stored source-monitoring records. Check each source's displayed reachability date for the actual observation; a schedule alone does not establish that a check or editorial review was completed.

Automated monitoring

The monitoring design targets a watchdog run every 90 minutes, refreshing a rotating batch of up to 10 tracked sources per run. Actual reachability dates appear in the Living Source Tracker; the target cadence is not a claim that every source was checked on schedule. For each fetched response, the monitor normalizes it, strips volatile chrome (scripts, styles, hydration markers, anti-cache tokens), and computes a stable content fingerprint. A new fingerprint is staged as pending and is only enqueued for editorial review after a second successful observation returns the same fingerprint — or when a versioned identifier (for example, a Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac bulletin number) changes.

Editorial review

Confirmed source changes are queued for editorial review, not automatically rewritten into mortgage guidance. A queued item or automated check does not prove that a human or licensed reviewer completed a review. When an editor does review a change, the decision and any affected-page update should be recorded with the actual review date; a decision that no page is affected should also be recorded when completed.

3. Calculator methodology

Every calculator on Conventional.Loans is deterministic, inspectable, and educational. We do not use a calculator to generate a price, a rate, an approval, or a commitment to lend.

Formulas and inputs

• Fixed-rate monthly payment uses the standard amortization identity M = P · r · (1 + r)n / ((1 + r)n − 1), where P is principal, r is the monthly interest rate, and n is the term in months.
• Front-end and back-end debt-to-income ratios follow the definitions used by the CFPB and by the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac selling guides: monthly qualifying debt divided by monthly qualifying income, expressed as a percentage.
• Loan-to-value uses LTV = loan amount / property value using the lesser of purchase price and appraised value, per the GSE seller/servicer guides.
• PMI-removal illustrations reference the Homeowners Protection Act of 1998 (HPA, 12 U.S.C. 4901 et seq.; termination and cancellation at 12 U.S.C. 4902) automatic-termination and borrower-requested-cancellation framework for borrower-paid PMI on residential mortgage transactions.
• Points break-even divides upfront discount-point cost by the monthly payment difference produced by the rate change the user enters.

What our calculators do not do

• They do not request or transmit Social Security Numbers, dates of birth, government IDs, bank data, tax data, or credit-report data.
• They do not fetch or quote live interest rates. The user enters an assumed rate; the output is illustrative at that assumed rate.
• They do not produce an approval, preapproval, underwriting decision, rate quote, rate lock, or commitment to lend.
• They do not model program overlays that vary by lender, investor, mortgage insurer, or state.

The repository includes unit tests for calculator behavior. Changes to a formula require a relevant test.

4. Authors and reviewers

A byline or reviewer credit only appears on a page when a real, verifiable person has produced or reviewed that specific content. We do not fabricate authors, reviewer names, credentials, awards, testimonials, ratings, or affiliations. Pages that do not yet have a named human author or reviewer are published as institutional editorial content under Bolt Home Loans LLC rather than under an invented person.

See our editorial standards for the qualifiers we require in mortgage writing ( “may,” “often,” “depends on”) and the categories of copy we refuse to publish (doorway pages, keyword-stuffed pages, thin location pages, hidden text).

5. Corrections workflow

Accurate content is more important than fast content. If a published page contains an inaccuracy — a wrong figure, a misstated regulation, an outdated guideline, or a claim we cannot support — we correct it and note the correction on the page along with the review date.

1. Report an issue via the corrections page.
2. An editor confirms the issue against a primary source in the source hierarchy above.
3. The page is updated, the correction is noted, and the last-reviewed date is refreshed.
4. If the change is material to consumer decisions, related pages and the source tracker are reviewed in the same pass.

6. Where education ends and a mortgage offer begins

Conventional.Loans is an editorial and decision-support platform. Nothing on this site is an offer of credit, an approval, a preapproval, an underwriting decision, a rate lock, or a commitment to lend. Application, disclosure, credit evaluation, and lending activities are carried out only through the licensed workflow operated by Bolt Home Loans LLC (NMLS 2784913), which you can verify on NMLS Consumer Access.

Educational calculators and guides on this site do not collect sensitive personal or financial information. Any transition from education to a licensed mortgage transaction happens through a separately identified, licensed workflow — never through an educational form or calculator on this site.

7. AI-assisted monitoring and generation

We use software — including automated monitoring and templated generation — to keep our source registry current and to produce structured, source-backed reference pages such as the Living Source Tracker. Templated pages use recorded source data and verification statuses; those records do not by themselves prove human review. These pages apply the same disclosure requirements as human-written content, and are subject to the same corrections workflow. Automated systems are not permitted to invent rates, APRs, fees, program eligibility, licensing, awards, or outcomes.

8. Primary sources cited across the site

The following verified primary sources are referenced across our guides, calculators, and insights. The full registry with affected routes lives on our source policy page.

For the 2026 conforming loan limits specifically, browse the full 2026 conforming loan limits by state directory or search any county in the county loan limit lookup. Both are built directly from the official FHFA 2026 County Loan Limit List.

• FHFA — Conservatorship of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — FHFA
• FHFA — Single Security Initiative and Common Securitization Platform (UMBS) — FHFA
• Freddie Mac — Home Possible — Freddie Mac
• Selling Guide B3-2-03, Risk Factors Evaluated by DU — Fannie Mae (living document)
• Selling Guide B3-6-02, Debt-to-Income Ratios — Fannie Mae (living document)
• Selling Guide B3-4.1-01, Minimum Reserve Requirements — Fannie Mae (living document)
• Selling Guide B4-1.4-10, Value Acceptance (Appraisal Waivers) — Fannie Mae (living document)
• Selling Guide B4-1.4-11, Value Acceptance + Property Data — Fannie Mae (living document)
• Conforming Loan Limit Values — Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) (2026 limits announced 2025-11-25; effective 2026-01-01)
• FHFA Announces Conforming Loan Limit Values for 2026 — Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) (2025-11-25)
• Selling Guide B2-1.3-02, Limited Cash-Out Refinance Transactions — Fannie Mae (living document)
• Selling Guide B2-1.3-03, Cash-Out Refinance Transactions — Fannie Mae (living document)
• Fannie Mae Announcement SEL-2026-06 — Selling Guide Updates — Fannie Mae (2026-06-03)
• Desktop Underwriter Credit Risk Assessment Updates — Fannie Mae (Effective for casefiles submitted on/after 2025-11-15)
• Fannie Mae Announcement SEL-2025-09 — Selling Guide Updates — Fannie Mae (verified reachable)
• Freddie Mac Single-Family Seller/Servicer Guide § 5203.2 — Credit assessment with Loan Product Advisor — Freddie Mac (living document)
• Freddie Mac Guide Bulletin 2026-7 — Freddie Mac (2026-06-03)
• CFPB — Owning a Home / Mortgages — Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (living resource)
• CFPB Regulation Z (12 CFR Part 1026) — Truth in Lending — Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (Most recently amended 2026-04-08)
• CFPB Regulation B (12 CFR Part 1002) — Equal Credit Opportunity — Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (Most recently amended 2026-07-21)
• Fannie Mae — 2026 Loan Limits — Fannie Mae
• VA — Purchase Loan Eligibility and Benefits — U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs
• VA — Home Loan Entitlement and Limits — U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs
• VA — Funding Fee and Loan Closing Costs — U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs
• CFPB — What Is Private Mortgage Insurance? — Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
• CFPB — When Can I Remove PMI? — Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
• Fannie Mae Servicing Guide B-8.1-04 — Termination of Conventional Mortgage Insurance — Fannie Mae
• Selling Guide B3-5.1-01 — General Requirements for Credit Scores — Fannie Mae
• Fannie Mae 97% LTV Options — Fannie Mae
• Selling Guide B3-3.1-01 — General Income Information — Fannie Mae
• Selling Guide B2-1.1-01 — Occupancy Types — Fannie Mae
• Selling Guide B5-6-01 — HomeReady Mortgage Loan and Borrower Eligibility — Fannie Mae
• Freddie Mac HomeOne — Freddie Mac
• Freddie Mac Home Possible Fact Sheet — Freddie Mac
• HUD Handbook 4000.1, August 12, 2026 edition — U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (2026-08-12 handbook edition)
• HUD Mortgage Insurance Premium Calculation — U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
• NMLS Consumer Access — Conference of State Bank Supervisors (living resource)