Russell Stout

Ask the internet whether you can buy a house on a work visa and you will get some version of the same answer: you need to be a citizen, or at least a permanent resident, and you definitely need a Social Security number. It comes back that way from search results, from AI assistants, and […]

A buyer walked away from a house last month. Good house, right neighborhood, priced fairly. The agent called me afterward genuinely confused, because the buyer had been pre-approved well above that number. He didn’t have a price problem. He had a payment problem. Nobody ever asks what a house costs. They ask what it costs […]

The VA funding fee shows up as a line item on a closing disclosure, and for a lot of veterans that’s the first time they think about it. Here’s the part worth knowing up front: whether you owe it isn’t a judgment call and it isn’t something anyone has to catch. Your Certificate of Eligibility […]

Some of the strongest financial profiles I see get rejected by traditional underwriting for the dumbest possible reason: no qualifying “income” on paper. Retirees living comfortably off investments. Business owners who legally write off enough that their tax return understates what they actually earn. Investors sitting on real assets who just don’t draw a W-2 […]

Here’s a conversation I have a few times a month. Someone who runs a real business, makes real money, and has been told by three different people that they can’t buy a house. Their tax return says they earned almost nothing. Their bank account says otherwise. Both are true. And it’s not a problem with […]