Editorial guidelines

Mission

Help readers see the real cost of owning a home using publicly available government data, presented at the county level with qualifying language and balanced risk framing.

Sourcing

Every data claim on HomeRule is sourced from a named public dataset (Census ACS, FEMA NFIP, FHFA HPI, IRS SOI, DOE EIA, HUD FMR, FRED). Sources are linked near the stat or in a “Data sources” section on the page.

Qualifying language

We use qualifying language (“typically,” “may,” “generally,” “in most cases”) on estimates. We do not tell readers what they should buy or what decision to make.

Balanced framing

Guides and county pages show risks alongside benefits. If buying is unlikely to make sense in a given market, we say so.

AI authorship disclosure

Parts of HomeRule’s guides and glossary are generated with large language models using real, structured data as inputs. Generated drafts are reviewed for factual accuracy against the underlying sources before publication. Data-driven pages (county, state, calculator) are programmatically rendered from imported datasets.

Updates and corrections

Data-driven pages refresh on a regular ISR cadence as new releases of the underlying datasets are published. To report a factual issue, use the contact page.

What we will not publish

Personalized financial or legal advice, endorsements of specific properties or agents, and content not backed by a named source.