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1. Hello, My husband and I are looking to buy a home in NC. We currently live in PA. We are thinking that we will not be able to buy a home because of our DTI ratio. We have a lot of student loan debt and are in our mid 50’s. After looking at your website, I thought that I would reach out to you and see if there is anything you can do to help us. Thank you in advance. Kind regards, Laura Hamilton

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2. Checklist for Gustan Cho Associates Posts

   Posts for Gustan Cho Associates should follow these best practices to make them useful for readers and profitable for us. This checklist covers what to do before writing your post, how to write your post so each one looks the same and promotes our brand, and how to follow up with the post to make it monetize.

   Before Writing a Post
   Decide what the purpose of your post is.
   Here are some common ones
   To inform consumers about a new product or rule change (news post)
   To answer common questions from consumers about mortgages
   To rank for a keyword that we have not pursued before
   To express an opinion
   To add evergreen guides for mortgage products or processes
   Do an incognito advanced Google search for that keyword or topic on Gustan Cho Associates to see if we already have an article about it. This link is for the term & QUOTE mortgage; Replace that with your topic or
   keyword. If we already have an article covering that topic, bring up the top-ranking piece and see if it's worthy of an update. If it is, proceed to update the piece. The rules are the same for updates or new articles, so you' ll follow the same process. If the top-ranking piece doesn’t cover the topic well, try the next-highest article, and ONLY if there are no good articles covering the topic, write a new one.
   Set Up the Post

   Professional editors create assignments for writers to get them focused on the topics and help them organize their articles properly. You should create your own assignments the same way so that your
   posts will be organized and easy to read.
   To set up a post, decide what your topic and keyword will be
   Then create an outline so that you stay on-topic and don’t head into the weeds. It is very easy for writers to get sidetracked and start adding other topics to a piece. For instance, they might start writing about how a 30-year fixed mortgage works and then start a discussion about overlays or the history of FHA or whatever. An outline prevents you from doing this.
   Here is a sample outline for a post about finding a good lender.

   Topic: How to Find the Best Mortgage Lenders
   Keyword: best mortgage lenders
   H1: How to Find the Best Mortgage Lenders
   Subtitle: Compare Mortgage Quotes and Ask These Questions to Find the Best Mortgage Lender for You
   Introduction (try to do an intro like this example with three bullet points to get into Google snippets):

   The best mortgage lenders provide excellent service and competitive mortgage rates. To find the best lender for you:
   Contact several lenders and request a mortgage quote in writing
   Compare quotes and then interview the top two lenders
   Choose an experienced lender who communicates well
   Contacting multiple lenders online makes it easier to compare and choose quickly.
   H2: Request Mortgage Quotes from Multiple Lenders
   (explain how to request quotes online and explain that you can only compare quotes that come in on the same day)
   H2: Compare Mortgage Quotes
   (explain what a Loan Estimate disclosure is and that some lenders provide loan scenarios instead of LEs)
   H2: Interviewing Lenders: Questions to Ask
   (include a list of questions consumers should ask lenders when they interview them and explain why the question is important and what you earn from it)
   H2: Good Lenders vs Bad Lenders
   (explain what good lenders do and how bad lenders don’t get the job done. For example, good lenders reply promptly when you call, text or email with questions. And they communicate in the style that you prefer. While bad lenders are never available, especially if they have bad news to deliver.)
   Conclusion —
   Choosing the right lender is important because a bad one can cost you money and provide a stressful experience. While a good lender offers a competitive interest rate and processes your loan with minimal hitches or ugly surprises. (Add two sentences about Gustan Cho Associates and why were the best lender for many first-time buyers, borrowers with credit issues, and borrowers who need non-QM loans.
   Write the Post
   Once you have decided on your topic and set up your post, you will want to follow some basic rules. I recommend using Grammarly because it will catch grammatical errors and it teaches you from
   wrong in a fun way. Eventually, you will naturally write correctly without even thinking about it. One thing I have noticed is the random capitalization of words in the posts. So this is wrong. It is important to
   apply for Mortgage Preapproval before you buy a home. No one should be publishing content that does not have green lights on the WordPress Readability
   and SEO analyzer. You will see the grade in the top right under Publish. Click on the grade there and it opens up the analysis at the bottom.
   Here is a sample readability analysis. It tells you exactly what you’re doing right and what needs to be improved.

   In this example, the problems are too high a reading difficulty, too much passive voice, repetitive word use, and sentence length. If you click the little eye icon on the right, it will highlight the parts of the post that are causing readability problems. Passive voice is a very common problem.
   Here is a passive sentence:
   The illegal left turn was made by the bad driver.
   The active version is:
   The bad driver made an illegal left turn. No more than 10% of your sentence should be passive, and WordPress will flag that issue.
   Here’s another one:
   Once you are approved for a mortgage by the lender, you will get a preapproval letter that you can show home sellers when you make an offer.
   And here is the correct, active version:
   Once the lender approves your loan application, you will get a preapproval letter that you can show home sellers when you make an offer. If something is done to someone or by someone, the sentence is
   probably passive. Here’s another passive sentence: Sentence length is also a common issue. The sentence above has 23 words. To get it under 20 (the
   target), try breaking it up. Once the lender approves your loan application, you will receive a mortgage preapproval letter. You can show this letter to home sellers when you make an offer
   SEO analysis is similar. In general, to get a passing SEO grade, you need the keyword in the title, at least one subhead, and at least once in the body. You want the keyword in the meta description as well.
   DON’T STUFF KEYWORDS PLEASE
   I have noticed a lot of posts in which the key phrase is way overused. The title might be Mortgage Approval With a High Debt-to-Income Ratio. And then every subhead is something like Compensating Factors About Mortgage Approval With a High Debt-to-Income Ratio.
   Get a Cosigner for Mortgage Approval With a High Debt-to-Income Ratio," etc.
   It is better to use the primary keyword in the title, one subhead, and at least once in the body. Use the
   keyword only in a natural way. You can also use similar words when you write the post. For the example above, for instance, better subheads might be. Apply With a Co-Signer and Compensating Factors for Higher DTI.
   In two to four weeks, writing content that gets green lights will become automatic. Stick with this list and you will ll find that you are writing to these guidelines without even thinking about them.

   Formatting the Post
   All posts should use the same formatting so that when users click through the site it looks professional
   and is easy to read. Please use this checklist to make sure that you are following these rules until they
   become second nature.
   Headlines and H2 subheads should be in TITLE CASE. That means do not capitalize every word. You
   capitalize:
   The first and last word of the heading
   Words of four or more letters
   All verbs (even short ones)
   Wrong: Is Rental Verification Necessary To Buy House By Lenders
   Right: Is Rental Verification by Lenders Necessary to Buy a House?

   There should be a LOT of white space. The maximum paragraph size is 150 words. I don’t count the words; instead, I limit paragraphs to three or at the most four sentences.
   Wrong (the block of text is hard to read and contains too many different ideas):
   Rental verification is proof the borrowers have a prior rental payment history for at least the past 12 months. Rental verification, also referred to as verification of rent (VOR), is only valid if the renter can
   provide either 12 months’ canceled checks and/or bank statements. The payment needs to be timely in the past 12 months. Besides providing proof of payment, the landlord needs to sign a rental verification form provided by the lender. Depending on the lender, a phone call to the landlord can be required. Rental verification is normally required on all FHA and/or VA manual underwrites. Borrowers who are living rent-free with family members to save money for the down payment are exempt from verification
   of rent at Gustan Cho Associates. Right (the block has been broken into two shorter sections, one about the VOR form and the other
   about alternative rental verification): Many loan programs require rental verification when borrowers don’t own their homes. Rental
   verification shows mortgage lenders if the borrower paid rent on time during the last 12 months. Lenders use a Verification of Rent (VOR) form, which the landlord completes and signs. The lender may
   also call the landlord.
   Lenders may request proof of on-time rental payment directly from the borrower instead of sending a
   VOR to the landlord. In that case, the borrower would provide canceled rent checks or bank statements
   showing rent payments. Borrowers who live rent-free should provide a letter from their landlord stating that they pay no rent. The first sentence should not duplicate the title.
   It should paraphrase the title and it should not be capitalized. It’s just a sentence in bold. So for this article, Payment Shock On Home Purchase By First Time Home Buyers, the first sentence
   should read; This article covers payment shock for mortgage applicants who are renters." It’s a nice way to include secondary keywords and it looks a lot less spammy.
   Don’t Stress!
   This seems like a lot, but the learning curve is not bad. Within two to four weeks, if you carefully follow these tips, you will be automatically creating better content and freeing up the editors to 10-X the content. Good, high-ranking evergreen pieces only improve your SEO over time, and It’s much better to write more slowly and correctly and keep readability high. Because when people land on a site and see a massive block of italicized text, they often bail. That increases the bounce rate and incurs Google hatred. We want Google love, so we have to be easy to read and keep people on the pages longer.

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