Real estate finance splits by who writes the rule, and most exam mistakes are a failure to notice the split. The federal government regulates the *money*: what a lender must disclose, how a rate may move, what it may charge, who it may not turn away, how a loan is serviced and taxed. Your state regulates the *security*: who holds title during the loan, how a foreclosure runs, whether a lender can pursue a shortfall.
This guide is built from the primary federal texts and quotes their operative words. Where an answer is state law, industry convention or arithmetic, it says so rather than dressing a guess as a citation — two curriculum chapters are deliberately not covered for that reason. Orientation for study, not legal, tax or financial advice.
Each chapter opens with the short version. Tap one to read the detail.
The note is the debt, the mortgage is the leash — and only one of them is federal
~2 min
Every instrument question is really two questions: what does the paper do, and which sovereign wrote the rule. Federal law governs the loan's terms and disclosure; the security interest and everything that happens on default is your state's.
Four regulators, four different promises
~2 min
Conventional, FHA, VA and USDA are not four flavours of the same loan. Each is written by a different body making a structurally different promise, and the exam tests the difference rather than the rates.
Disclosure law is about timing as much as content
~2 min
The consumer-protection statutes rarely forbid a term. They compel a disclosure, at a defined moment, and most exam items turn on when the clock started rather than on what the form says.
What underwriting must prove, and what no regulation states
~2 min
Federal law defines the application, the disclosures and the refusal. The standards a file is actually judged against are the enterprises' own guides, and knowing which is which saves you from inventing a federal rule that does not exist.
Selling the loan is what makes the next loan possible
~2 min
The secondary market exists to recycle capital, and almost everything about how it works is market practice rather than regulation — which is exactly why it is worth understanding rather than memorising.
The tax code splits by transaction, and so should your answer
~2 min
Holding a rental, disposing of an asset and selling a home are three different tax regimes with three different publications behind them. Identify which one an item is in before reaching for a rule.
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