Help Center

Getting started

Create an account or sign in from Start assessment. Complete all five onboarding steps: household goals, income, expenses and debts, savings and assets, then review. Use current, supportable amounts and never enter another person’s information without permission.

Your session token stays in this browser session. Sign in again after closing the browser or when a session expires.

Readiness dashboard

Open Readiness, enter estimated net monthly income and an effective date, then calculate. Review the overall score, factor explanations, and recommended actions. A score is an educational planning signal—not approval, underwriting, or a credit decision.

Mortgage comparisons

Open Mortgages. Enter property price, rate as a percentage, taxes, insurance, HOA, closing-cost rate, available cash, and the down-payment options to compare. Review cash-to-close, principal and interest, full modeled housing payment, mortgage insurance assumptions, and total modeled interest.

Rates, eligibility, taxes, insurance, fees, and program rules change. Confirm every scenario with licensed professionals and official disclosures.

Property discovery

Open Properties to search by ZIP, budget, bedrooms, rate, and effective date. Save useful results and review the personalized payment explanation. Demonstration listings are clearly marked synthetic and are not real offers for sale.

Mortgage acceleration

Open Acceleration to compare six approaches: standard payment, monthly extra principal, biweekly equivalent, annual lump sum, principal reduction with recast, and shorter refinance. Enter the current balance, rate, remaining modeled term, strategy amounts, refinance fees, and effective date.

Interest saved and total-cost change are separate. Refinance fees are included in modeled repayment. Ask the lender or servicer how extra payments are applied and whether recasting, prepayment restrictions, minimums, or fees apply.

Reports and private documents

Open Reports to generate a reproducible readiness snapshot, view its status, open the web version, or create a five-minute PDF download link. Upload only supported PDF, PNG, or JPEG documents you are authorized to store. Every upload is type-checked and scanned for malware before private storage; if scanning is unavailable, the upload is refused. Downloads use expiring, account-bound links. The shared demo account cannot store documents—create your own account to test uploads.

E-book library and purchases

Open the Library to browse publications. Sign in, then choose Download PDF for a free title. A premium title shows its price and a Stripe purchase button only when the superadmin has enabled sales.

Stripe Checkout opens on Stripe’s hosted page. A successful browser redirect does not grant access by itself; Buy-First-House waits for Stripe’s verified payment webhook. After confirmation, return to the Library and download the owned title. Download links expire after five minutes and can be generated again.

Subscriptions

The Reports area shows subscription status. When subscription billing is enabled, Checkout starts the plan and the Stripe customer portal manages it. E-book purchases are separate one-time transactions and do not require a subscription.

Admin and superadmin

Admins can open Admin to view database row counts and privacy classifications, manage identity status and password resets, administer approved configuration, and manage synthetic property inventory. They cannot view or change private customer financial rows.

Superadmins can create permanent admins, control Stripe subscriptions, and use the publishing console for complete e-book CRUD: metadata, free/premium status, price, draft/publication state, cover accent, PDF replacement, deletion, and the e-book sales toggle. Stripe secrets are environment-only and never displayed in the UI.

Privacy and security

Use a unique password, avoid shared accounts, sign out by closing the session when using a shared device, and distribute expiring links only to intended recipients. Administrators see identity metadata needed for support but the admin data map enforces counts-only access to private customer tables.

Troubleshooting

If a page asks you to sign in, return to onboarding and sign in again. If a premium button says purchases are coming soon, sales are disabled or Stripe credentials are incomplete. If payment succeeded but the title is not unlocked, wait briefly, refresh the Library, and have a superadmin check webhook delivery before retrying payment.

If a report is still processing, leave the page open or refresh its history. If a download link expired, request another. For persistent errors, record the time, page, action, and correlation ID from the response for support.

Important limitations

Buy-First-House provides educational estimates. It is not a lender, broker, financial adviser, attorney, tax adviser, appraiser, inspector, insurer, or real-estate professional. Outputs are not commitments, approvals, valuations, guarantees, or individualized advice. Use authoritative sources and qualified professionals before acting.