How this site works

Short version: the numbers are cited, the school zones link to the official locators, the live BAH rates are never quoted from memory, and the mortgage relationship is disclosed in plain language.

Where the data comes from

What	Source
Rent, home value, household income, property tax paid (57 metros)	US Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2024 1-year estimates (tables B25064, B25077, B19013, B25103), retrieved via the Census Reporter API
Commute distance and driving time	Live routing on the OpenStreetMap road network (OSRM). No traffic model — peak-hour figures are labelled as an estimate
School district coverage, enrollment (where shown)	Each district's own website; performance questions link to the Alabama State Department of Education report card
School zone boundaries for a specific address	Official district and city GIS locators — we link to them rather than redraw them
Utilities, tag and title, licensing, voter registration, pet licensing	The city, county, state agency or utility that owns the process, linked per step
BAH	Not published here. Use the official DoD rate table, linked from the rent-vs-buy tool

What we deliberately do not publish

• School ratings or "best school" rankings. District-reported data and the state report card, or nothing.
• Live mortgage rates presented as offers. Example rates are labelled as examples until a licensed quote exists.
• BAH figures. They change annually and by grade; a stale number is worse than none.
• MLS listing data. Displaying it requires broker-authorised IDX access. Instead we hand you to ValleyMLS directly and use the value we can add: alerts, payment math and context.

How this site makes money

One way: it is operated by a mortgage professional in Huntsville, and people who use the tools here can ask to be pre-qualified. That's the entire model. We are not paid by agents, insurers, builders or the MLS for placement, and we do not sell contact details.

Prototype status

This build is a preview. Before any public launch the following are mandatory: a licensed-entity review of every payment calculation and published figure, the correct NMLS ID and Equal Housing disclosures, an APR/payment disclaimer on every output that shows a payment, a written privacy policy and TCPA-compliant consent language on every capture form, and a decision on the domain. Until then, everything numeric here should be treated as a model, not a quote.