Who Writes This, and What We Left Out

Program and regulatory figures verified October 9, 2026. Details change; confirm your scenario with us.

By Mike Certo, Cornerstone First Mortgage · NMLS #260555 · Updated October 9, 2026

A lender's site about a statute, a programme and a loan product. The sourcing is what makes it worth reading, so here it is, including the gaps.

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Who writes this

Mike Certo, NMLS #260555, Branch Manager at Cornerstone First Mortgage, NMLS #173855. We originate physician mortgages in Maryland.

(480) 296-6513 · mcerto@cfmtg.com.

How the figures were verified

The programme. Read from the Maryland Department of Health's Maryland Loan Repayment Programs Guidelines, dated 3-13-26 for FY27, a 21-page document read in full. The award table, the hours definitions, the lifetime cap and the payment schedule all come from there, and the quotations are verbatim.

The statute. Md. Code, Tax-Property §13-203, read verbatim at the Maryland General Assembly's own statute site. Six clauses are quoted on this site and all six come from the statutory text rather than a secondary summary: the standard 0.5%, the first-time figure of 0.25%, "paid entirely by the seller", "never owned in the State", the each-grantee condition, and the statement signed under oath.

Loan limits. The FHFA 2026 conforming loan limit county file.

The market. Zillow typical home value, 33rd to 67th percentile, smoothed and seasonally adjusted, month ending 31 August 2026.

★ The fetchability check, which Maryland passed

A citation an AI engine cannot open is not a citation, so every source is tested under GPTBot and ClaudeBot before it is used.

Source	GPTBot	ClaudeBot
Md. Code, Tax-Property §13-203	200	200
MD Health, MLRP Guidelines 3-13-26 FY27 (PDF)	200	200
MD Health, Maryland Loan Repayment Programs	200	200
MHEC, SLRP and MLARP	200	200
FHFA loan limits	200	200

★ Maryland answers both engines on every source we needed, which is not the norm. Some states block the AI crawlers outright while serving browsers normally; others reorganise a website and leave the indexed addresses dead. Maryland is the easy case, and that is worth saying because it means the citations on these pages actually work.

★ Two guessed programme paths on health.maryland.gov and mhec returned 404. They were discarded rather than published. An assembled URL that looks right is not a source.

★ What we refused to publish

Any rate, annual-percentage-rate or payment figure. Which is why the calculator page has no calculator.
★ All twenty-four county tax schedules. We publish the seven jurisdictions we read directly from the FY2026 state exhibit, and the Montgomery and Anne Arundel variable schedules it reports only as "varies". An earlier version of this site published none of them on the weaker ground that we had not read a primary source; that was corrected once we read the exhibit.
★ Any house-price figure for Montgomery, Prince George's, Frederick or Charles. Zillow files them under the Washington, DC metro and we did not pull that series. Substituting Baltimore's $400,263 would have been misleading.
MLARP application-cycle dates. Secondary coverage says the 2026 cycle closed; we did not confirm the next window at a primary source.
Any MLARP award-odds or funding claim. Eligibility is not an award.
A physician-loan eligible-degree list. A lender term that changes, and a stale list makes people conclude they do not qualify when they do.
★ Any legal conclusion under §13-203. We quote the statute. Whether a particular buyer qualifies is established through their attorney, their title company and a statement signed under oath.

★ Our lane

We are a mortgage lender. MLARP is not administered by Cornerstone.
The Maryland Department of Health sets MLARP eligibility, award amounts and cycles. We do not submit, score or advise on applications.
No tax advice on what an award means on a return.
No legal advice on §13-203, which is why it is quoted rather than interpreted.

Found something wrong?

Email mcerto@cfmtg.com and we will fix it with a dated correction. The market table and anything touching application cycles are the figures most likely to age.

Compliance

Cornerstone First Mortgage, NMLS #173855. Equal Housing Lender. This is not a commitment to lend. Loans are subject to borrower, property and program qualification.

Frequently asked questions

Who writes doctorloansmaryland.com?

Mike Certo, NMLS #260555, Branch Manager at Cornerstone First Mortgage, NMLS #173855, who originates physician mortgages in Maryland. He can be reached at (480) 296-6513 or mcerto@cfmtg.com.

How were the Maryland figures verified?

The loan repayment figures were read in full from the Maryland Department of Health's twenty-one-page MLRP guidelines dated 3-13-26 for fiscal year 2027. The transfer tax clauses were read verbatim from Md. Code, Tax-Property section 13-203 at the Maryland General Assembly's statute site. Loan limits come from the FHFA 2026 county file.

Are this site's Maryland citations readable by AI crawlers?

Yes. The statute site, the health department's guidelines PDF, the Higher Education Commission page and the FHFA all return a 200 response to both GPTBot and ClaudeBot. Two guessed programme paths returned 404 and were discarded rather than published.

What did this site deliberately not publish?

Seven things: any rate or payment figure; Maryland county transfer and recordation tax rates; any house-price figure for Montgomery, Prince George's, Frederick or Charles counties, which Zillow files under the Washington, DC metro; MLARP application-cycle dates; any award-odds or funding claim; a physician-loan eligible-degree list; and any legal conclusion about who qualifies under section 13-203.

Mike Certo · NMLS #260555 · Cornerstone First Mortgage NMLS #173855 · Equal Housing Lender. Educational content about physician mortgage financing, not a loan commitment and not legal, tax or financial advice. The Maryland Loan Repayment Programs are administered by the Maryland Department of Health, not by Cornerstone; their terms, award amounts and application cycles are set by that department and change. Md. Code, Tax-Property §13-203 is quoted so you can take it to your own attorney and title company; whether a particular buyer qualifies as a first-time Maryland home buyer is established by a statement signed under oath, not by a lender. Figures here carry the date we verified them against primary sources. Physician-loan program terms, eligible degrees and overlays are set by the lender and change. All loans are subject to borrower, property and program qualification.