About
A plain-English reference for the questions that come up when buying or selling a home in the United States, written in the order people actually encounter them.
Real Estate Field Guide exists because the existing online resources for residential real estate are uneven. Lender sites are sales material. Realtor blogs tend to be short and SEO-padded. The genuinely useful sources, the CFPB, IRS, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac selling guides, ALTA, NAR’s annual research, are scattered and written in the language of the agencies that publish them. Putting all of that into one place, in plain English, organized by the journey people actually take, is what this site is trying to do.
The posture is editorial, not advisory. Every consequential page describes how things work in general, names the licensed professional whose job it is to handle the specifics, and surfaces a question worth asking. We don’t tell readers what to do in their specific situation, because we don’t know their specific situation, and the people who do are the licensed real estate attorneys, loan officers, CPAs, and other professionals named on each page.
What you’ll find here
Two parallel hubs ( Buying and Selling ) covering the seven stages each side actually goes through, with articles inside each stage that explain how that part of the process works.
Six calculators : affordability, mortgage payment, amortization, closing costs, rent vs. buy, and seller net proceeds. The math is documented; the inputs are honest about what’s known versus what’s assumption. The tools surface is the trust core of the site, no ads, no affiliate links, no “recommended lender” injected into outputs, ever.
A glossary of the terms that come up. Each entry is short and structured the same way: definition, mechanism, why it matters, common gotcha. Cross-linked into every article on first use.
What you won’t find here
Advice for your specific situation. Real estate decisions are individual, your finances, your local market, your lender, your contract, your property condition, your tax position. The site can describe how the standard mechanics work; the licensed professional in your jurisdiction is the one who applies them to your specific case.
Sales pitches. There’s no “get a quote” CTA, no embedded lender partner program, no exit-intent popup, no email capture for a free guide. The site is supported by display advertising on editorial pages (clearly labeled when ads run) and eventually by affiliate relationships with vetted partners (also clearly labeled). The economics are documented in detail at /how-we-make-money.
Editorial certainty where the underlying reality is uncertain. Mortgage rates, home prices, local market dynamics, and tax law are all moving targets. Where the evidence supports a strong claim, the site says so and cites the source. Where it doesn’t, the site says so too, sometimes the honest answer is “a CPA needs to look at this” or “the rate forecast is genuinely unpredictable.”
Who runs the site
Real Estate Field Guide is published anonymously and operated by an independent editorial team. The site is not affiliated with any lender, brokerage, real estate franchise, title company, or insurance carrier. We have no commercial relationship with anyone whose products are described on the site, and the editorial process is structured so that no commercial relationship can quietly emerge.
The discipline that keeps the site honest is documented in the editorial standards. The sources every empirical claim relies on are documented at /sources. The credentialed reviewers who vet articles for accuracy are listed at /about/team. Corrections and source flags are welcome, see /contact for how to reach the editorial team.