Every instrument on this site is explained here, and so is everything the site declines to do.
Questions grouped by how each instrument runs, what each published figure means, and what this site does not do by rule. Every answer carries a named quantity.
Each instrument runs in your browser from inputs you type and rates that carry a source and a date.
Nothing you enter leaves the page unless you choose to carry a result into a message on the contact page, and every posted rate names the survey it came from.
On what inputs does the payoff engine run, and what does it publish from them?
The engine takes the loan amount, the annual rate, and the term, and it defaults the rate to the Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey figure of 6.71 percent as of 2026-09-03. From those three inputs it computes the standard annuity payment, then it lets you add extra principal each month on a slider, convert the schedule to biweekly, apply a one time lump sum in a month you choose, and toggle a recast after that lump sum.
What it publishes is the month and year the loan ends, the total interest paid to reach it, and the months and dollars saved against the baseline schedule, with a full amortization table underneath. Money is held in integer cents and rates in basis points, so the figures do not drift by rounding.
How does the mortgage and affordability instrument arrive at a ceiling, and why does it differ from a lender's quote?
The instrument works backward from a monthly payment you can carry to the loan that payment supports at the posted rate and term, then it adds the property tax, the insurance, and any association dues you enter, because the payment a lender quotes is the principal and interest alone while the payment you write each month is the full carrying cost.
Its rate is the survey rate of 6.71 percent, which is an average across lenders on 2026-09-03, not a quote for your file. A lender prices your credit, your down payment, and your points, so the difference between the survey rate and your quote is a figure worth asking for in writing.
How does the VA loan and BAH to payment instrument set an allowance against a payment?
It quotes the 2026 Basic Allowance for Housing for the Colorado Springs and Denver housing areas grade by grade, with and without dependents, from the published Department of War tables effective January 1, and it never interpolates between grades. You pick the grade and the housing area, and the instrument places that allowance beside the full monthly cost of a house at the posted rate.
BAH is set to cover 95 percent of the national average housing cost by pay grade; the member cost share is 5 percent. The rate protection rule also matters on the Front Range, because several Denver with dependents rates are lower for 2026 than for the prior year, and a member who arrived earlier keeps the higher figure. The VA funding fee and the county loan limits for partial entitlement sit beside the table on the military desk.
What does the investment analyzer compute, and which of its inputs move the result the most?
The analyzer takes the purchase price, the down payment, the rate, the rent, the vacancy allowance, and the operating costs you enter, and it returns the monthly cash flow, the cash on cash return, and the capitalization rate, each computed from your figures rather than from a default it invented.
Rent and vacancy move the result more than the rate does, since a one month vacancy on a $2,400 rent removes $2,400 from the year while a quarter point of rate on a $400,000 loan changes the payment by roughly $60 a month. The analyzer is a model of your assumptions, and it says so in its footer.
Where do the market pulse readings come from, and how often do they change?
Each metro reading names the association that published it and the month it describes, and the gauge places the months of supply figure on a band with ticks at 4.5 and 6.0 months. Where a board has not published a figure the cell reads Not published rather than a guess, because an empty cell is a fact and a guessed number is not.
The readings change when the boards publish, which for the Pikes Peak and Denver associations is monthly, and the letter that carries them goes out on the first Tuesday of the month with the month over month change and one paragraph on what moved them.
Every figure on the site has one definition, and the definition is the same on every page that prints it.
The definitions below are the ones the instruments use in their arithmetic, so a reading on the market page and a figure in the payoff table mean exactly what they say here.
What does months of supply measure, and where do the seller and buyer bands begin?
Months of supply divides the active listings at the end of a month by that month's closed sales, which yields the number of months the current inventory would take to sell at the current pace if no new listing arrived. The site's gauge marks the seller's band below 4 months and the buyer's band above 6.0 months, with the band between them read as balanced.
The six month balance point is the benchmark the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies cites on NAR inventory data, and the three band version follows ShowingTime. A reading of 3.8 months therefore sits inside the seller's band, while a reading of 5.2 sits in balance, closer to the seller edge than the buyer edge.
How are days on market and the list to sale ratio counted, and why do I read them together?
Days on market counts the days from the listing date to the contract date as the MLS records them, and the median across a month's closed sales is the figure the boards publish. The list to sale ratio divides the closed price by the final list price, so a ratio of 99 percent means the house closed one percent under its last asking price.
The two are read together because a house that sat 74 days and closed at 97 percent tells a different story from one that closed in 9 days at 101 percent, and a pricing memorandum for a seller carries both figures for every comparable sale it rests on.
What is a basis point, and why do the instruments hold rates that way?
A basis point is one hundredth of one percent, so the survey rate of 6.71 percent is 671 basis points and a quarter point move is 25 basis points. The instruments store every rate as an integer count of basis points and every dollar amount as an integer count of cents, then divide only at the moment a figure is printed.
That convention exists because floating point arithmetic on decimals drifts by fractions of a cent across 360 payments, and a payoff table that lands on a balance of a few cents rather than zero is a table nobody should trust. The final period of every schedule is trued up so the balance is exactly zero.
What do amortization, recast, and biweekly mean in the payoff table?
Amortization is the schedule that splits each level payment into interest on the outstanding balance and principal that reduces it, so early payments are mostly interest and late payments are mostly principal. A recast is a lender's recalculation of that level payment after a lump sum, keeping the original end date and lowering the payment, which is why the payoff date holds still when you toggle it.
A biweekly schedule pays half the monthly amount every two weeks, which makes 26 half payments a year, or the equivalent of thirteen monthly payments, and the engine models that thirteenth payment as extra principal so you can see the months it removes.
This site models, publishes, and explains, and there are five things it does not do by rule.
Each limit is written down here so you learn it from me before you learn it from a lender, an appraiser, or the Division of Real Estate.
Does any figure on this site amount to a loan offer, a pre approval, or an appraisal?
Every figure shown by an instrument on this site is a model computed from inputs you supply and from posted rates carrying a source and a date. It is not a loan offer, a pre approval, or an appraisal. A lender issues a pre approval after underwriting your credit and income, and a licensed appraiser issues an appraisal after inspecting the property against closed sales.
What the instruments give you is the arithmetic those professionals will run, in advance and with the assumptions visible, so that the first quote you receive is a number you can check rather than a number you have to trust. Where a quote differs from the model, the difference is the question to ask.
Can I search the MLS here, and what happens to a search request in the meantime?
A full MLS search arrives on the listings page the day the employing brokerage's data agreement is connected, and the listings page states plainly what it is showing until then. Each listing will carry the listing brokerage's name, the listing number, the MLS disclaimer, and a feed refreshed at least every twelve hours, because those are the display rules of both Front Range MLSs.
Until the feed is live, a search request from the listings or contact page goes to me, I run the search in the MLS directly, and the results come back with the days on market and the list to sale history attached to every listing.
Why is there no license number on the site, and how is the licensee identified instead?
Colorado Commission Rule 6.10 requires that all advertising be done clearly and conspicuously in the name of the employing brokerage firm, and that every viewable page of electronic media the broker controls carry that firm's name. The rule contains no requirement for a license number, so the brokerage name in the footer and my name are what identify the licensee to the Division of Real Estate.
Teal Apex Homes is the marketing name of Katrina Hill, a broker associate with Real, and brokerage services are provided through Real, the employing broker named on every page.
Why does the site never describe a neighborhood by the people who live there?
Federal law protects seven classes and Colorado law protects fourteen, including familial status, source of income, and veteran or military status, and both prohibit any advertisement that indicates a preference or limitation on those grounds. The practical rule on this site is that area content describes trails, parks, open space, commute corridors, water, altitude, and hail exposure, and it never ranks or characterizes an area by its residents, its schools, or its crime.
That standard is written into the repository this site is built from and checked by a greppable gate before anything publishes, and the fair housing page explains it in full.
A question this page does not answer reaches me at support@tealapexgroup.com, and the answer arrives within one business day with the figure behind it. Read the fair housing standard