The Market Desk
Straight answers, sourced and dated. No sign-in, no form, nothing to join — take what you need and put your own name on it. We don’t ask agents for business; we hand them the tools to win it.
Free · Open to everyone · Every figure carries the source and the year it came from
What property taxes actually look like, town by town
The first question a buyer asks after the price, and the one most listing sites answer badly or not at all. Pick a state, start typing a town.
Property taxes by town
Median real estate taxes actually paid, and what that works out to as a share of home value. Published by the U.S. Census Bureau — not scraped from anybody, and not estimated by us.
How long a loan actually takes
Originated at Beyond Financing, Inc.
Published because almost nobody publishes it. These are the windows we work to from a complete file — not best cases, and not a promise on any particular transaction.
| Loan type | Typical close from a complete file |
|---|---|
| Government (FHA, VA, USDA) | 3–4 weeks |
| Agency (Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac) | 3–4 weeks |
| Everything else (Non-QM, bank statement, DSCR, jumbo) | 4+ weeks |
A complete file means the documents are in and the appraisal is ordered. Timelines depend on the property, the appraisal, title, the loan program and the borrower’s own responsiveness, and they are not a commitment to close by any date. Contract dates should be set with your loan officer, in writing.
What it costs a buyer to wait
The equity they would already have, set against the rent they will have paid, on a specific home. It runs on every BRE|HQ feature presentation we produce for a listing — the buyer fills in four fields and gets the arithmetic with every assumption named on the screen beside it.
Illustrations only, from published market history. Not a loan offer, quote, pre-qualification, approval or commitment to lend, and not an appraisal or an opinion of value.
Coming to the Desk
Rate Watch
Where rates actually are this morning, from the Federal Reserve’s own release, with the week and the month behind it.
Payment & affordability
What a buyer can carry, and what a price means as a monthly number, with the taxes from the table above already in it.
Seller net sheet
What a seller walks away with at a given price, by state, with the real costs in it.
Programs by situation
Self-employed, investor, first-time, foreign national, recent credit event — what is actually possible.