Who Writes This and How It Was Verified
Program and regulatory figures verified October 6, 2026. Details change; confirm your scenario with us.
A lender's site about a state program whose own website cannot be read by machines. That makes the sourcing the most important part of the page.
Who writes this?
Mike Certo, NMLS #260555, Branch Manager at Cornerstone First Mortgage, NMLS #173855. We originate in Ohio and the network already runs Ohio Loan Experts and Investor Loans Ohio.
Reach Mike at (480) 296-6513 or mcerto@cfmtg.com.
★★ The Ohio sourcing problem
The Ohio Department of Health's website returns an error to every automated tool we tried, including the crawlers that feed AI assistants and including a plain page fetcher. The site root behaves that way, and so does every program page and every application-packet PDF. The Department of Taxation's site does the same.
That matters in a specific and slightly unusual way. A website that refuses machines usually returns a "forbidden" response, which reads clearly as a block. Ohio's returns a "not found" response instead, which normally means the page has been deleted. So an automated check of an Ohio source looks exactly like evidence that the underlying fact has gone away, when in fact the page is fine and loads in a browser.
We found this out by fetching the same URLs with a browser and getting a normal page back. It is the reason this site treats "not found" on an Ohio government URL as a question rather than an answer.
How the figures were verified
The loan repayment program: we downloaded and read the Department's 17-page Ohio Physician Loan Repayment Program application guidance in full. The award amounts, the hours, the teaching and telemedicine allowances, the free-clinic rule, the disqualifier list and the breach penalty all come from that document, read directly.
The statutes: ORC 3702.72 for eligibility, ORC 319.54 for the mandatory conveyance fee and ORC 322.02 for the permissive county tax. Ohio's code site is readable by machines, which is why the statutes rather than the Department's pages carry the citations here. A statute is a better source than a brochure in any case.
Loan limits: all 88 Ohio counties checked programmatically against the FHFA's 2026 county limit file. Every one at $832,750.
Market data: Zillow Research's public metro series for the month ending 31 August 2026, pulled 2026-10-06. Forty Ohio metros, thirty-nine up, one down.
★★ The figure conflict, and how we resolved it
A summary we encountered reported Ohio awards of $37,500 a year rising to $47,500. The Department's own packet says $25,000 rising to $35,000. A second independent check also returned $25,000 and $35,000.
We publish the packet's figures, because the packet is the document. The higher numbers appear nowhere on this site.
We also tell you the packet's own limitation: its file metadata dates it to 2022. So the figures are published with a verification date and with an instruction to confirm with the Department, because the Department's current page is one we cannot read. That is an honest position rather than a comfortable one.
★ What we refused to publish
- Any named county's transfer tax rate. ORC 322.02 makes the additional tax a local resolution, the Department of Taxation's site is unreadable, and we verified no individual county figure. We publish the 0.4% statutory ceiling and route you to your county auditor.
- A current OPLRP application deadline. None appears in any document we can read.
- An average award. Ohio publishes maximums. No report of actual averages was readable, so "up to" means up to.
- Any claim about non-citizen eligibility. The application form includes a residency-status field with options including "Legal Alien", but a form listing an option is not a rule. Nothing we read states a citizenship requirement either way, so we say nothing.
- Dental award amounts. The documents we verified were the physician program's. The Department runs a separate Health Professional program and we have no verified figures for it.
And one more: no resident or graduate-medical-education counts, because the AAMC's data reports refuse the crawlers and we found no readable primary source.
What else we will not do
- Quote rates or payment amounts. Both are shown on your file instead.
- Give a tax conclusion. The Department's "payments are tax-exempt" is quoted and attributed to the Department. We are lenders.
- Advise on licensure, visas or employment contracts. We will tell you what a contract supports on the mortgage side and flag the OPLRP disqualifier; the rest is not ours.
- Advise on who pays what at closing. That is a contract matter for your agent and closing agent.
- Describe the physician program as agency financing. It is a lender portfolio guideline set, which is why it treats student debt and start dates differently.
Found something wrong?
Email mcerto@cfmtg.com and we will fix it with a dated correction. Program terms, statutory rates, loan limits and market data all change, and the award figures here are the ones we would most want to update if the Department publishes something newer that we can read.
Compliance
Cornerstone First Mortgage, NMLS #173855. Equal Housing Lender. This is not a commitment to lend. Loans are subject to buyer and property qualification.
Frequently asked questions
Who is Mike Certo?
A Branch Manager at Cornerstone First Mortgage, NMLS #173855, holding NMLS #260555. He originates loans in Ohio and writes the program explanations on this site. He can be reached at (480) 296-6513 or mcerto@cfmtg.com.How were the Ohio loan repayment figures verified?
They were read directly out of the Ohio Department of Health's 17-page application guidance for the Physician Loan Repayment Program, rather than taken from a summary. A circulating summary reported $37,500 and $47,500 a year; the Department's packet says $25,000 and $35,000, and a second independent check agreed with the packet. The packet's file metadata dates it to 2022, so the figures carry a verification date and an instruction to confirm with the Department.Why doesn't this site list my Ohio county's transfer tax rate?
Because the additional county tax under ORC 322.02 is levied by resolution of each county's board of commissioners and varies locally, the Ohio Department of Taxation's website cannot be read by automated tools, and we verified no individual county figure. The site publishes the 0.4% statutory ceiling and routes readers to their county auditor for the actual rate.Can AI assistants read the Ohio Department of Health's website?
No. The Department's site returns a not-found response to the crawlers that feed AI assistants and to plain page fetchers, while loading normally in a browser. The Department of Taxation behaves the same way. That is why this site anchors its citations to codes.ohio.gov, which is machine-readable, and reads the Department's figures out of its downloadable application packet.Mike Certo · NMLS #260555 · Cornerstone First Mortgage NMLS #173855 · Equal Housing Lender. Educational content, not a loan commitment and not legal, tax, or licensure advice. Physician-loan program terms, eligible degrees, and overlays are set by the lender and change. Ohio Physician Loan Repayment Program award amounts, eligibility, service terms and penalties are set by the Ohio Department of Health and change; the figures here carry the date we verified them against the Department's published application packet and the Ohio Revised Code, and ODH's own pages cannot be read by automated tools, so confirm your position with the Department. Ohio conveyance fees and county real property transfer taxes are set by statute and by county resolution and change. All loans are subject to borrower and property qualification, including credit and income review.