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The dinner reservation that moves home prices


A visitor who comes for a tasting menu also books a room, rents gear, browses the boutiques and has a nightcap down the street. The Harvard team’s finding that restaurants rarely crowd out other businesses fits that picture: good kitchens tend to attract neighbors rather than replace them.

Colorado shows how seriously resort towns take this. When the Michelin Guide arrived in the state in 2023, Aspen and Snowmass Village, along with Vail and Beaver Creek, were among the few areas inspectors covered. According to The Colorado Sun, each participating area agreed to pay between $70,000 and $100,000 a year for three years, alongside roughly $135,000 from the Colorado Tourism Office. In 2026, those deals gave way to a single statewide agreement. Tourism officials, in other words, are treating a restaurant guide as economic development spending.

The catch: somebody has to cook

This is the part that should matter most to anyone underwriting in a resort town. A dining scene is only as durable as its workforce, and in many vacation markets that workforce can’t afford to live nearby.

In Colorado’s mountain communities, worker shortages have forced restaurants to cut their hours. In the Florida Keys, NPR reported this summer on restaurant workers who serve tourists all day but can’t afford to live in town. Near Telluride, the housing squeeze has become so acute that hotels are being converted to long-term worker housing as vacation rentals take over homes, sometimes ending up in court.

Crowdcube: Veremark Offering Is Secondary That Allows Existing Shareholder Liquidity


Crowdcube has just listed an offering of shares in Veremark, a screening and background-check firm that supports employers.

According to the offering page, Veremark is offering shares at £6.34. The Series B funding round in February valued the company at about $100 million and raised $26 million from VCs. Currently, the offering shows purchases of £457,152.

The offering is part of the PISCES partnership with the London Stock Exchange. This secondary offering allows existing shareholders, frequently employees, to gain some liquidity. Crowdcube has been selected to provide retail access to shares in the private company. Crowdcube acts as a Registered Auction Agent (RAA) for the private securities market. Singer Capital Markets is working as an RAA alongside Crowdcube on the buy side.

Launched in 2020, Veremark has been recognized as one of the fastest-growing companies in 2026, as recognized by the FT. Veremark reports year-over-year growth of 241% for the first half of 2026. The company reports an active customer base of over 8,000 clients globally. Veremark now employs over 300 people worldwide.

Veremark was created with the recognition that artificial intelligence is being leveraged to create fake profiles, and firms are finding it more difficult to discern what is true and what is bogus. Veremark’s tech stack allows companies to instantly implement global background screening at scale.

In a blog post, Matt Cooper, Crowdcube’s co-CEO, said they have become the go-to agent for employee share transactions on the London Stock Exchange’s Private Securities Market.

The Veremark employee share sale opened this week (September 22nd), with the auction taking place on October 7th.

Have a crowdfunding offering you’d like to share? Submit an offering for consideration using our Submit a Tip form and we may share it on our site!



Best Investing Apps for Beginners in Europe 2026



👉🏼 Master ETF & index investing from Europe – here’s the easy way to get started or optimize your portfolio:

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Chapters:
00:00 Introduction
00:46 The most beginner-friendly investment apps
00:50 Trade Republic
05:53 Lightyear
09:51 Trading 212
14:23 Taxes
15:15 Daily banking apps that offer investing
15:32 Revolut
21:10 N26
26:26 Important principle
27:44 The biggest, most reputable brokerages
27:50 Interactive Brokers
33:02 Saxo Bank
37:25 Degiro
41:52 Final results

—

All the content on this channel is for educational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. Any examples of investments, investment firms, or strategies are provided purely for illustrative purposes and are not endorsements. This content does not take into account your personal financial situation or risk profile. Investing involves risk, and you should do your own research or consult a licensed financial advisor before making any decisions.

Always watch out for scammers in the comments. Any recommendation of a specific financial advisor or expert is almost certainly a scam. Any profit claims that sound too good to be true are likely a scam. I will never ask you to message me privately. I will never recommend you use a specific investment platform or buy a particular investment.

I only offer educational courses via my website indexmasterclass.com (use the links above).

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From a $200K Duplex to Replacing His 6-Figure Salary with Rental Properties


Real estate investing won’t make you rich overnight. But keep at it for long enough, and it will make you very wealthy.

Philip Henry had been doing all the right things: buying a rental property every year, renovating it, raising rent, and then rolling his home equity into the next deal. Yet after nearly 15 years, he had very little to show for it, and the stress and workload were beginning to take a toll on his health and relationships.

Right when others would have given up, the real estate deal of a lifetime landed right in Philip’s lap—a seven-figure, 31-unit rental property that would change his family’s future.

Now, Philip is financially free, has quit his W-2 job, and is building generational wealth with rental properties.

How did he do it? Today, he’s pulling back the curtain on the deal that changed everything and the strategies behind it: seller financing, other people’s money, and perhaps most importantly, the patience and persistence needed to win in real estate.

Henry Washington:
Real estate is not a get rich quick kind of game, but it is a get rich for sure game. Keep at it and it will eventually make you wealthy. Most investors get out too early, usually right before the big payoff. For 15 years, investor Philip Henry felt like he was treading water. He was doing all the right things, buying multifamily property every year, renovating the units, raising the rents, and then rolling his equity into the next deal. On paper, he was building wealth, but it was not showing up in his bank account. The stress was mounting and the workload was taking a toll on his health and his relationships were suffering. But that’s exactly when the breakthrough came, a real estate deal that would single-handedly change his life. Philip bought it with none of his own money, and then he created enough value and cash flow to replace his six-figure salary.
Today, he’s going to pull back the curtain on that deal and the strategies behind it, plus the patience and persistence it takes to win in real estate. What’s going on, everybody? I’m Henry Washington, co-host of the BiggerPockets Podcast, and today we’re bringing you an investor story with Philip Henry. So let’s bring him on. Mr. Phillip Henry, welcome to the BiggerPockets Podcast.

Philip Henry:
Well, thank you so much, Henry. Appreciate it. Appreciate you having me on. Why

Henry Washington:
Don’t you go ahead and give us a little background. What got you into real estate investing in the first? What were you doing before that?

Philip Henry:
Wow. Well, originally from Canada, I went to chemical engineering and then moved to the US in 01 with my wife. And at the time we had a new baby and started doing engineering work in Boston and then just started reading books about real estate. You drive by a golf course and it’s like noon on a Wednesday and someone’s in there with a nice car and golfing and my dad always was working at that time. So I was like, “Something’s different about what they’re doing versus what my dad did.” So anyway, that’s how it started. And then I bought a two unit. That was how I got off the ground.

Henry Washington:
How long ago was that?

Philip Henry:
That was in 2003, I think. Oh,

Henry Washington:
Man. So you got a long investing history.

Philip Henry:
Yes.

Henry Washington:
I know it was a while ago, but it was your first rodeo in the real estate game. So why don’t you tell us a little bit about that deal? What did you buy? How did it go? And then how did that propel your investing career?

Philip Henry:
So a lot of the new engineers, new families starting up would get a single family home in Boston and then they’re mortgage poor. And I was broke. I had no money. Started out salary with 40 grand or something like that. And $200,000 price point, two unit. We bought it. I think it was an FHA. I would come home from engineering school, go up into the second unit, sand floors, paint, rented that out for 800 bucks. So my costs went from 900 in an apartment to 450 and I owned the place. And then a year later I sold it and left the closing table with a check and it said like 50 grand on it. I paid off my student loans and that’s when I was hooked. I was like, there’s no way. I just made a year salary by living in a house. So you

Henry Washington:
Did house hacking before it was cool, before it was a fancy name for it.

Philip Henry:
You got it.

Henry Washington:
How

Philip Henry:
Did

Henry Washington:
That change or shape what you ended up doing next?

Philip Henry:
Well, I think the first thing is it increased my belief. So my belief that I actually could be a real estate investor, that was huge for me. And then I got transferred up to Bangor and I bought a four unit right out of the gate. Same way, FHA, three and a half percent down. The seller carried closing costs, so I had very little in it and I started with that. That was my next acquisition.

Henry Washington:
Okay. So you house hacked that one as well. The first one, it sounded like you had some renovation to do. You were doing some of the sweat equity. Were you doing the same thing on the next one or was it more of a turnkey deal?

Philip Henry:
It was a little bit more ready to go, but it still needed a fair amount of love. So it was like you come home from the end of the day, pick up some supplies and grab your hockey buddy and tell them there’s a six pack waiting for him and off I went.

Henry Washington:
When we talk about owner financing, a lot of investors understand, well, yeah, I can go to the owner and I can ask them to give me a loan since they own the property, but owner financing is bigger than that. Owner financing can be something just like that where the owner just carries part of the loan, like the down payment. So with that being your second deal, how did you know to do that or how did that come about?

Philip Henry:
So one of the things that usually stagnates people from getting off of their first unit is that you’re capital poor. It’s hard to come up with 20% savings to get another unit. So once I got that four unit, I was tapped. And then another kind of worn down landlord had a two building, 11 units. And I don’t know how I came up, maybe it was a book I read and that it was an option. And he was a savvy investor. He had a bunch of units. So he said, okay, yeah, I’d be willing to carry paper. And I was like, carry paper, what the hell does that mean? But once we got through that, he was very open to doing that. So he carried the 20% down payment that I needed and he carried closing costs. So I ended up taking another 11 units under ownership and I walked away with a small check for prorated rents at that time.
It needed a ton of work, but that’s all I had for options. But I bought those two buildings for 200 grand and they just appraised for like 950 and I had no money in the game.

Henry Washington:
My perspective on seller finance is that it has nothing to do with what you want and it has everything to do with what the seller wants. That’s why it’s called seller finance. And I have found it to be a more productive and successful conversation when I am focused on trying to figure out what it is that the seller needs. And then I try to structure the deal that gives them what they need. Now it’s hard for them to say, no, you said you wanted a down payment, I’m giving you a down payment. You said you wanted a 7% interest rate. I’m giving you a 7% interest rate. But all of the other factors of the loan, I’m tipping in my favor. 100%. And so I found that to be the most successful strategy. How do you go about approaching somebody and offering seller financing?

Philip Henry:
Really it’s to your point, you’re trying to create a win-win. You’re trying to understand the motivation factors of the seller. And I think it starts with a conversation like, “Hey, would the seller be open to that?” Well, they’re not really open to it. They don’t really understand it. Okay, well now you have another roadblock to get through. And so every deal’s different, but in order to grow when you lack capital, you have to be creative and you have to either leverage seller financing, get really good at approaching sellers with the idea of it, and then being really good at explaining why it benefits them as well and not just you. And then it’s so funny, Henry, once you get a track record of success and you have a few deals under your belt, there’s a lot of people that have money that is in the market making six, 7%.
And if you can get a down payment for a place and tell them that you’ll just pay them 11% on their money until you pay it back or for two years or for three years to get into a deal, which I’ve done too, it benefits them, it benefits you, and it’s just another tool in the belt. Yeah.

Henry Washington:
Your goal as an investor is to educate yourself, understand what are all of the ways that I could finance a deal so that when a deal comes across your desk and a seller is in a certain type of situation, you can go, ah, that’s this type of loan and I can underwrite it this way because it gives a seller what they need. It helps me get the deal done and it helps solve the problem for me, which is not having to spend a ton of my own capital. It’s a tool in the tool belt. I love that analogy. All right, Mr. Phillip. I love the last name by the way, Mr. Phillip Henry. Thank you. I want to learn more about how you continue to grow and scale, but I want to do that right after we take a break.

Philip Henry:
Sounds good.

Henry Washington:
Imagine if real estate investing was easy, all the benefits of owning real properties without all the complexity and expense. That’s the power of the Fundrise Flagship Fund. Now you can invest in the $1.1 billion real estate portfolio starting with as little as $10. Visit fundrise.com/biggerpockets to explore the portfolio, see historical returns and more. Carefully consider the investment objectives, risks, charges, and expenses of the Fundrise Flagship Fund before investing. This and other information can be found in the funds prospectus at fundrise.com/flagship. This is a paid advertisement. All right, we are back on the BiggerPockets podcast. I am with investor Phillip Henry who has a wealth of experience, done some creative finance deals, and we’re here chatting about those. Mr. Phillip, now you mentioned that you bought a duplex house hack, then you did a fourplex house hack, then you did 11 units and the 11 units was mostly all owner finance, correct?

Philip Henry:
Yeah, the entire down payment, the 20% I required for a down payment, the seller carried that.

Henry Washington:
So what happened after that?

Philip Henry:
Well, I was a full-time traveling engineer, so I’m on the road, but I made a small little tire. I said, I got to get at least one multifamily a year. So I just kept adding one a year, one a year, one a year. So four unit, four unit, four unit. And most of it was that until I had about 40, maybe 46 units or so. But what I found, when I was at that stage, it wasn’t at critical mass. I still had my six-figure engineering travel, but I’m traveling, staying at Marriott’s doing that. And then I have 46 units at home, so my wife’s raising kids and dealing with these calls. And it started to put some major, major stress on the relationship. It was just a really, really difficult time. I don’t have entrepreneurs, parents. I got a work ethic from my dad. I got compassion from my mom, but they are so conservative.
They were wondering if I was a crazy absolute lunatic and wasting my money and time and I’m in a different place today because of those things.

Henry Washington:
It took my father probably four or five years of me doing real estate before he stopped asking me how my 401k was doing. That’s right. I got rid of that thing so long ago, dad. I’m good. I’m fine. It makes 8%.

Philip Henry:
My real estate makes 25 or 30% return. No, no, thanks.

Henry Washington:
Yeah. I like this concept of buying one a year because it seems manageable. That sounds attractive to a lot of new investors. They know that’s not scary. I could buy one a year. Cool. Now let’s talk about what it actually took to buy one a year. So you were buying one multifamily a year. Were you buying them all on owner financing or was this traditional financing?

Philip Henry:
Every deal I go in, I propose seller financing and 90% of the time I was able to pull that off. And so that allowed me to do that. And then just really MLS, things that have been sitting for a while. I was big on, because I wanted to find a motivated seller. Usually those are tired landlords or whatever. So I would go in and negotiate that and then I would go into each unit. So one unit would vacate, I would go in, redo the unit, get someone else in there, increase rents, change the NOI, increase the value, and then I would have equity. Then I would just start to use equity for the next acquisition, next acquisition. So either equity or seller financing.

Henry Washington:
Love it. So almost like a little cross-collateralization kind of style you were doing there.

Philip Henry:
Exactly.

Henry Washington:
All right. So you’re doing some of the work, you’re getting these things up to speed because obviously the way we get good deals is we buy problems and those problems a lot of times are the property needs some, let’s call it love. Next is you’re obviously keeping these things as rentals, so who’s managing these things?

Philip Henry:
So because I was a chemical engineer and I’m traveling all over, I didn’t want to create another job. I didn’t want to have another job for myself. I mean, the whole thing about having financial freedom is the freedom part. You know what I mean? It’s one thing that money coming in, but if you don’t have the ability to do what you want, when you want to do it with the people that you want to do it with. So yeah, no, I hired a couple full-time folks and they take all the calls. They schedule all the maintenance, do all the maintenance, and I still do the leasing and advertising.

Henry Washington:
So you do the fun part. You get it looking pretty and then you get

Philip Henry:
To

Henry Washington:
Tell people how awesome it is and get it filled. You got it.

Philip Henry:
And

Henry Washington:
Then you’re –

Philip Henry:
I get to shake her hand,

Henry Washington:
See

Philip Henry:
Who’s going to be in my buildings. Fair enough. I like to keep my hands on that part.

Henry Washington:
While you were in this stretch of one property a year and you were doing all the things that I was asking about, how much time were you spending in and on your real estate business?

Philip Henry:
I would say probably 10 to 15 hours a week, 45 units at the time. 10

Henry Washington:
To 15 on top of a day job where you’re driving.

Philip Henry:
On top of a day job, yeah. And that’s the hardest part. When you have these units, yes, they’re kicking off cash, but you’re re-injecting a lot of that cash to bring them up to snuff. And so your wife’s like, okay, you’re gone all the time. The account’s not really growing. And in my head, I know I’m getting equity. I know I’m building this future, but you don’t see anything. And that’s the hardest part to be in. It’s like I’m doing all this work that was a tough place to be.

Henry Washington:
Look, I appreciate the honesty and the transparency here because this is the reality. For almost every real estate investor, at some point you start to realize in the beginning parts of your journey that I am not reaping the fruits of the amount of labor that I feel like I’m putting in.

Philip Henry:
You got it.

Henry Washington:
People say real estate is a long-term game. And we hear that and we understand it and we go, “Yeah, you start now and then in the future you’re wealthy.” That makes sense. But no one talks about what that feels like when you’re actually in it. It’s a long-term game. What people mean when they say it’s a long-term game, what they’re saying is the financial benefit to what you’re doing doesn’t really hit you until a while in the future. And if you want that to happen, you’ve got to remain capital heavy enough to stay afloat in the meantime. And yes, you’re buying assets that produce cash flow and yes, you’re getting cash flow from every single unit. And then you look at your bank account and you’re like, “Where the heck is that cash flow?” And that’s because I get in trouble for saying this, but I stand on my business, cash flow is a myth.
It’s a myth. You absolutely shoot for it, you underwrite for it, you don’t buy a deal unless it’s going to produce it, but cash flow is hard to chase because yes, your property’s producing two, $300 a month in net cash flow, but if you’ve got an HVAC go out in year one, that’s $8,000. You’ve only made $2,200 in cash flow and you’ve now spent $8,000 on an HVAC unit.
And so if you’re trying to live off that $200 a month of that property and you put a new HVAC in it, you can’t do it. The money’s not real. It’s real in the future, but on a day-to-day basis, it is so hard to predict living off your cash flow. And that’s what makes this business so hard is because in the first five years, you feel a whole lot of that and you don’t feel a whole lot of your bank account growing. But then once you get past five, you start to get to 10 and 15 years, things start to look a little different in that bank account.

Philip Henry:
They sure do. And it’s so crazy because I almost feel like the universe is saying, “Do you want this or not?” Because there are dark places in there when there’s no money in the account and the HVAC unit goes and you’re like, “Do I have to put this on the card again? I don’t know if it’s going to be able to handle it.” Your wife’s like, “What’s going on? Sell it all. Get out of this business. This is a stupid idea.” And then that’s when faith comes in because if you can get through that pain, what I can tell you is the other side is a beautiful place.

Henry Washington:
It’s so amazing. And I know I’m preaching here, but man, you’re speaking my language. Look, folks, there’s a lot of ways to invest in this country. There’s the stock market and there’s crypto and there’s futures and there’s all these things you can invest in. Real estate is the only get rich for sure.
If you buy assets and you don’t sell them, either because you want to or you’re forced to because you couldn’t remain capital heavy enough in the hard times, you will become wealthy. The goal is you got to stay in the game. How do you stay in the game? You buy good deals, you underwrite correctly, and you make sure you got some capital in the bank account to cover you when things go hard because they will get hard, but it’s the only get rich for sure, but you’ve got to maintain. And I like the honest and open conversation about those moments. I’ve seen people in the past six to 12 months posting, multiple people posting on social media about, “I used to have a real estate portfolio. I had 40 doors, 50 doors, 20 doors, and I wasn’t making any money.” But when you dive into their story, they were only three to seven years in the business.
They hadn’t hit the money part yet. That’s why I mean that you know you weren’t making any money or didn’t feel like it because it takes time to get there. But if you stay, if you can stay, I promise you, the wealth comes and that’s a pretty cool guarantee.

Philip Henry:
It sure is. I will say. And what’s so cool about it is that as you’re going through the journey and as you’re going through all these challenges, you get better at cash flow management, you get better at identifying challenges when you’re underwriting or looking at a deal. So then when you have an opportunity for a big life changing acquisition, you capitalize on it and you only need one.

Henry Washington:
Do you have one of those deals and could you tell us about it?

Philip Henry:
Yes. So after I had 46 units, like I said, my wife and I, it was like this inflection point in our marriage. The stress was heavy and we had discussions, you come home from a week away and try and blend back into my family. And it was like they had their thing going on and it’s like I was disrupting it. It’s like as long as there’s money coming in and I felt like I was an ATM machine, she felt like she wasn’t being heard or listened to or understood or my presence wasn’t there. I was always distracted. And so I knew that I was close, you know what I mean? I knew that if I could get another good deal on this, the building that I’m in right now, it was a 31. It’s a 32 unit now. So I chased this guy who owned it.
I would find out where he was having a beer and I would sit by him. “Oh, hey Larry, what’s going on? Good to see you.” Are you

Henry Washington:
Saying stock the owner of a building until he sells it to you? Is that

Philip Henry:
Your

Henry Washington:
Advice here?

Philip Henry:
Everything’s on the table. Everything’s on the table. But no, I basically was like this guy, the deal came to my direction. I’m like, “Okay, this is a 31 unit. There’s no way I’m going to be able to enter into this. This is a new level for me.” So we finally got to a point where it was a $1.2 million asset at the time in 2017, right? 1.2 million bucks. He carried 10% paper, which was 120K. And then I had an old engineer that I had really good relationship with and he said he would chip in the other 120 and that’s how the deal went. So I had no money. I borrowed 120 from a guy 10 years elderly than me, had some capital. The seller chipped in. And then one by one, the units vacate, I come in, new granite counters, redo it, rent it, and then 32 times.
And we just got an appraisal, 5.2 million. Wow. Did a whole re-amortization, took a million bucks out tax-free. And then you’re driving by, Henry, and you’re like, “I own that thing, man.” It’s just such a crazy thing because when I grew up, I was like, “Man, who owns that? Who would own that?” And it’s an amazing thing that if you stick with it long enough and you stay diligent and you learn and you grow and you keep doing it, a deal will come your way that will change your life.

Henry Washington:
That’s incredible. So I mean, I’ve got a couple of questions about it, but on its surface, that’s amazing. You said you had the seller carry 50% of the down payment

Philip Henry:
And

Henry Washington:
You had a private investor for 50% of the down payment.

Philip Henry:
For me, I did a five-year balloon. So I basically said, “Hey, carry it.” I knew that I could turn the thing around and then have enough equity to be able to pay him off. And we didn’t really have a time limit on the private investor because hey, he’s making 11% on his money, so he was happy. Keep throwing me a check every month. But yeah, so I did the same. As soon as I knew I had the equity, I pulled it out, got it appraised, and then took some money and tossed it their way. And then it was 100% owned by me.

Henry Washington:
So when I quit my job, it was hard for me to give up the safety net. I was very scared, even though I knew I had done the math. I was making much more money on real estate per hour than I was making in my day job by a lot, but it was still extremely scary to leave. And I actually had to have a friend of mine who was an entrepreneur, had been an entrepreneur kind of pushed me over the edge and say, “Hey, I have the same fear, but once I took the leap, it was way better than though I was going to be. Don’t worry about it. You’re going to be fine.” How did you get comfortable with the idea that you weren’t going to have that safety net anymore?

Philip Henry:
Oh man, I don’t know. I felt like if I didn’t make this change and be present and be home with my family, so it was just like I didn’t want my legacy to be a dad on the road all the time. The money wasn’t really as important at that point. I needed to make change. But there’s a lot of fear because I had the six figures and yes, I had replaced it, but now I was so comfortable with that along with my six figures. You know what I mean? It’s like, okay, now I have – You’re losing

Henry Washington:
Something. Yeah.

Philip Henry:
Yeah, you’re still losing something. So even though I gained a fair amount of cash flow from this 31 unit, I was letting go of a six figure salary. But in my mind, I said, “Listen, if you were part-time in this thing and you got to this point, imagine if you have 100% focus and you’re able to stay in this business, what you could do.” That allowed me to flip houses. It allowed me to grow the portfolio strategically. So yeah, when I quit, I had a 15-year engineering career. And then from 2017 to now, I have five, if not 10X, my net worth from those years.

Henry Washington:
All right, Philip, I want to get a little vulnerable if you’re going to be willing, but you have every right to say, “Hey, I don’t want to go there because it is personal.” But you did mention that you had some struggles with the wife and the family and not being present enough as you were building this and the bank account not being where you want it to be. I’m very curious if you’d be willing to share with us what some of those conversations were like and then how did you as a couple navigate through those difficult times?

Philip Henry:
I think this is a huge passion of mine because number one, staying married is hard. It’s really, really hard. And raising children is hard. And when you combine raising children with trying to be, trying to have a passionate, a connected marriage, and you’re also trying to build a huge business for your family and for your future and for your legacy, it breaks a lot of people. It breaks a lot of men. And so I had to start to search internally. Why are these arguments continuing? Why are these disconnections continuing? Why am I sleeping on one side of the bed looking one way and she’s on the other side? I’m five feet away from my wife and I feel like I’m alone. And that is a very, very difficult place to be for a man. And I think a lot of people quit in that spot.
They quit, they get divorced, they call it a day, but then the next relationship stops at that same exact point. You want deeper connection, you have to go inside and get deeper connection with you. And I think the more you can get comfortable with all the things, forgive yourself, love yourself more. So the more you love yourself, the more you can love the spouse that you’re with and the more that you can pour into your children. So I had to go away for a while and I joined kind of a mastermind, a men, entrepreneurial men. I had to get around people that were experiencing deep marriages, people that understood how to communicate better, what does a wife need? Love language. I started to invest in understanding how are these conflicts happening? And those are the things that when you start to layer those on top of each other over and over again, you start to rebuild and reconnect the marriage.
And you can do it, anybody can do it, but when you don’t know and you feel hopeless because you just, “Man, I’ve been trying all this stuff. I’ve read a book. What’s going on?”

Henry Washington:
I love that vulnerability. And the key there to what you said was self-awareness and not placing blame. Right, wrong or indifferent, what I’ve learned, or at least what I think I’ve learned on this journey of entrepreneurship and marriage is that if things aren’t going the way I think they should go in the home or that I expect them to go or that I want them to go in the home, 90% of the reason why that is, is something that I can fix and I can control because it’s probably something that I can do differently. But it takes a lot of humility and self-awareness to be able to take your frustration at a situation and maybe even your frustration with somebody else in a situation
And go, “All right, what did I do to put us to where we’re even having this conversation and what can I do to get us out of it?” And I don’t know if that’s just our responsibility as men or husbands, but I’ve just found that when I take my feelings out of the situation and realize that my wife isn’t my enemy, she’s not trying to make me mad. She doesn’t want to hurt my feelings. She doesn’t want to make me angry. She wants me to be a good husband. She wants to be a good wife. And so when I realize she’s not coming from a place of trying to harm me, it really helps me get out of my own feelings and figure out what things I can do to change.

Philip Henry:
I love that. What I’ve learned is that the stories in your mind, as soon as you have an emotion of anger or frustration, it only comes from a story. What story you’re telling yourself creates the emotion and from the emotion you start to take action, like you shut down. Oh, she doesn’t appreciate me. What do you do? What’s the action you take? You shut down. And then what are the results of that? Well, does that bring you closer or does that bring you further apart? And so when you start to realize that’s the way that it works, what story am I telling? I got to reframe the story. How about she’s had a hard day and she’s just looking to confide in me and I’m appreciative of that. And then what action am I going to take? I’m going to be more open. I’m going to be more loving, going to be more patient, more kind.
And then that brings you closer together and it takes practice, it takes intention, and you have to have hard conversations. I see so many people that avoid hard conversations with the people they love the most because they are difficult. At least my experience talking to men, it’s like when we’re connected to this woman, we only are vulnerable to usually very few people and one of those people is our wife. So it’s one of those things. We’re opening our heart to this one person that we’ve chosen to live our life with.
So it’s the story, the feelings, the action, the results. Change the story, change the results.

Henry Washington:
Man, that’s incredible. I agree with you. And whenever you start your marriage retreat for real estate investor couples, just send me the link. I’ll sign up.

Philip Henry:
Sweet. Will do. Will do.

Henry Washington:
All right, Mr. Phillip, first and foremost, I want to say thank you for the openness and honesty, both around the deals that you were doing and how you did them, what went well and what didn’t, but around marriage and life and some of these real conversations that a lot of people are having. Before we go, can you wrap up? Give us an overall, what does your portfolio look like and are you looking to do anything cool or crazy next?

Philip Henry:
Sure. So right now the portfolio is about a little over 20 million bucks, a lot of commercial, about 50% commercial, 50% residential, ski condo, a place in Florida that we Airbnb. So I think, not to digress, but I think you can get these places and then book out your two weeks. Yeah.

Henry Washington:
And then you can

Philip Henry:
Have fun. Have someone else pay for it. Go to the ski place, go to the place on the beach. And meanwhile, now you own these assets and they’re just part of your portfolio. So it’s just another thing that I’ve done. And right now I’m in the position of some of my assets, I want to parlay them. So I’m at a place with the equity that I have, I’m starting to look at 1031 exchanges. So to parlay all those profits, all that equity into bigger deals as I move down to Florida, I’m looking to get bigger deals and leverage the equity that I have in those. So that’s the plan.

Henry Washington:
And if anybody wants to Who find out more about you or learn from you? Is there a place where they can do that?

Philip Henry:
They can. On Instagram, it’s Phillip M. Henry with one L. And then I wrote a book describing some of the strategies. It’s called Running in the Snowstorm and it’s on Amazon. And then I coach. I coach men, faith, family, fitness, fortune. So it’s four pillars. I feel like there’s very few role models that are fit, are connected, that have purpose, have a thriving marriage, and have financial abundance. And I look to plan my life and I invest in each one of those quadrants. And because before I used to invest in one and that was production. And I would just leave the other ones behind. And that is not an abundant life, I can assure you.

Henry Washington:
All right. Thank you so much, Mr. Phillip. Thank you for sharing your story with us. And if you’re listening to the story and you’re thinking, “Man, I would love to be able to share my story with the BiggerPockets audience,” well, you might just get to do that. You can head on over to www.biggerpockets.com/guest, fill out the form and we’ll go through it. And you may be able to just be here just like Philip sharing your story with us in the near future. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of BiggerPockets Podcast. We’ll see everyone on the next episode.

 

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The U.S. and China are quietly talking AI guardrails—even as Trump publicly rejects them



The CEOs of two of America’s top AI companies told the UN Security Council on Wednesday that artificial intelligence has become a threat to global security, and asked world governments to write shared rules for it. 

Yet the White House won’t jump. On Thursday morning, ahead of his summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Trump posted that “super intelligence”—his administration’s new term for AI—would be a big topic of discussion, “but I want to leave it exactly where it is. That is China’s position also.” He added: “Our guardrail is the DOJ!”

And hours later, standing next to Trump at the White House, Xi struck a different, more cooperative note. “We have both the capability and responsibility to develop and manage AI for good and ensure that development of AI is always under human control,” he said.

Behind the scenes, the two nations have begun talking. China’s commerce ministry said at a press conference Thursday the countries had held their first dialogue on AI, after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent met Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng in New York earlier in the week. Bessent said that the U.S. proposed a notification mechanism between the two countries for national security-related AI incidents.

That’s similar to what Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei asked the Security Council for a day earlier. “No leader, no company, and no nation can manage this alone,” he said.

It’s also an early sign that the administration’s public posture and private diplomacy don’t fully line up. Two days earlier, Trump told the UN General Assembly the U.S. rejects any “globalist scheme” to control AI. Yet now his Treasury secretary is proposing a formal channel with China, the country which Trump and American VCs cast as the main villain in the race to AI against the U.S. 

Yet Amodei’s proposal at the Security Council went further. He called for starting with small agreements every country could agree on, such as a ban on using AI to make biological weapons, then building systems for governments to verify each other’s commitments, and then the global alert system. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman also called for fast, shared incident reporting. And he said his company had slowed down its own AI development before and would again, undercutting the industry’s usual argument that they’re locked in a race they can’t escape from. 

Borrowing the UN’s language

Xi’s line about keeping AI “under human control” echoed nearly word for word what speakers told the Security Council a day earlier. Yoshua Bengio, an AI scientist who co-chaired the UN’s scientific panel on AI, said the goal was AI that “demonstrably remains under our control.” Pakistan’s foreign minister also said the top priority was to “retain human judgment and control” over AI.

That allows Beijing to present itself as the responsible party on AI as it visits the White House, while Trump claims China shares his hands-off approach.

China is also building its own coalition on safe AI. In July it launched the World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization, with 29 countries (and no major Western democracies), pitched to the developing world as a way to share AI rather than let a few American companies dominate. At the Security Council, Pakistan, a founding member of that organization, warned that measures “pursued in the name of safety must not become instruments of denial of technology,” a thinly veiled shot at U.S. export controls on advanced chips, or of a regulatory regime that would prioritize a few top models at the expense of open source. Loosening the chip controls is one of Xi’s top asks this week.

Clement Delangue, the french CEO of Hugging Face, the company OpenAI’s models hacked this summer, agrees with Xi that open models keep all the companies safer. He told the council that when his team tried to use closed American AI models to defend itself, the models’ safeguards blocked them. So they fought the attack with an open sourced model from China. The bigger risk than powerful AI, he said, is that just a few companies and countries control it.

That’s an awkward pitch for OpenAi and Athropic, both of which sell closed models. The safety regime that they are instead pitching, with extensive testing, verification and a coordinated pace at the frontier, is also the kind that only a few well funded companies can most easily meet.

American tech isn’t necessarily united behind the CEOs, either. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg told NBC News this week that he doesn’t think the industry needs “some kind of industrywide coordination,” arguing there’s “plenty of commercial incentive to get this right.” Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, who is expected at Thursday night’s state dinner with Xi, has called AI fears overblown. Trump’s position is much closer to theirs than to Altman’s or Amodei’s.

Fed officials see rates likely rising to curb high inflation




Fed officials see rates likely rising to curb high inflation

Rove Launches Android App, Plus “Rove the World” Promotion


Rove Launches Android App, Plus Boosted Rates

Rove has finally launched an app for Android adding to the app that was recently released for iOS.

To celebrate the Android launch and having both Rove apps live, they’re also launching Rove the World, a limited-time promotion with increased Rove Miles earnings across 30 different travel merchants.

From September 24, 2026 through September 28, 2026, at 11:59 p.m. EDT, Rove members can earn boosted rates across vacation rentals, flights, tours, rental cars, luggage, cruises, and more, including:

  • Viator 8x (Rove Miles per $1 spent)
  • Vrbo 7x
  • GetYourGuide 10x
  • Hertz 4x
  • Thrifty Car Rental 2x
  • Enterprise 2x
  • Dollar Car Rental 2x
  • Best Western 4x
  • Samsonite 5x
  • American Tourister 4x
  • Luggage Forward 6x
  • Away 4x
  • City Sightseeing 8x
  • Big Bus Tours 8x
  • ResortPass 4x
  • ParkSleepFly 15x
  • Eatwith 7x
  • CruiseDirect 3x
  • Cruises.com 2x
  • MSC Cruises 3x
  • British Airways 1x
  • Southwest Airlines 2x
  • JetBlue TrueBlue 2x
  • United MileagePlus 2x
  • Hilton Honors 2x
  • Marriott Bonvoy 2x
  • IHG Rewards Club 2x
  • Air France KLM Flying Blue 2x
  • Etihad Guest 2x
  • Choice Privileges 2x

The promotion is designed to celebrate Rove’s expansion across mobile while giving members more ways to earn throughout an entire trip.

If you don’t have a Rove account, you can sign up now to earn a limited time bonus of 1,000 miles instantly.

SpaceX Stock: Bull vs. Bear Scenarios


Take a look at Wall Street’s projections for Space Exploration Technologies (SPCX -4.11%) stock, and you might be a little confused about what to expect. One analyst, for example, has an $800 price target on shares. Another analyst has a price target of just $75.

Of course, both analysts have good reasons for their price targets. And for the most part, they’re digesting the same information available to every other investor. The difference of opinion doesn’t necessarily stem from the facts on hand, but rather from expectations about the company’s ability to execute its growth initiatives.

If you’re a SpaceX investor or own any other space stocks or rocket stocks, you’ll want to understand the key drivers for SpaceX’s valuation.

Space Exploration Technologies

Today’s Change

(-4.11%) $-6.36

Current Price

$148.36

This is why Wall Street disagrees on SpaceX stock

To understand why Wall Street is split on SpaceX stock, it’s important to first identify where most of SpaceX’s growth opportunity lies. Then, we can get a better idea of which growth initiatives are actually meaningful in valuing the stock. “We believe we have identified the largest actionable total addressable market in human history,” SpaceX claims in its IPO prospectus. “We estimate that our quantifiable TAM is $28.5 trillion.”

Right away, we can start to understand why analysts disagree about the stock. Some believe SpaceX will be successful in targeting its large claimed growth runway. Others are more skeptical.

When we break down SpaceX’s total growth opportunity in more detail, it becomes clear that one segment reigns supreme in generating long-term value. Of its total claimed $28.5 trillion addressable market, just $370 billion stems from “space-based solutions,” a category that largely consists of its rocket launch business. Another $1.6 trillion of value stems from “connectivity,” which mostly includes SpaceX’s Starlink satellite network.

A whopping $26.5 trillion, however, deals exclusively with one segment: AI. According to SpaceX, that sum breaks down into $2.4 trillion for AI infrastructure, $760 billion for consumer subscriptions, $600 billion for digital advertising, and $22.7 trillion for enterprise applications. So-called “enterprise applications,” therefore, are the key driver to SpaceX’s long-term growth plans.

According to HyperFrame Research, “That enterprise figure is not a software market estimate; it is the Digital Cooperation Organization’s projected size of the entire global digital economy (blended across several estimates).” In other words, HyperFrame Research believes that this figure “relies on the premise that AI agents displace white-collar labor.”

A rocket flying in front of the moon.

Image source: Getty Images.

Wall Street may disagree on many points regarding SpaceX stock. Some analysts believe orbital data centers are feasible. Others do not. Some analysts forecast a Starlink monopoly for years to come. Others see mounting competition. Some analysts fully expect SpaceX to establish a manufacturing base on the moon. Others remain skeptical.

Regardless of those disagreements, one thing is clear: SpaceX is relying on AI to replace a large share of global human labor to justify its valuation. If that fails to occur — or even if it occurs on a much longer timeline than experts think — it will have a disproportionate impact on the company’s long-term stock price.

The Most INSANE Couple Ever | Financial Audit



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Student Loan Forgiveness Programs In 2026: Every Way To Qualify


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Key Points
  • Public Service Loan Forgiveness is the only broad federal program that still cancels balances tax-free, and it survived the July 1, 2026 overhaul intact.
  • Income-driven forgiveness now takes 20, 25, or 30 years depending on your plan, and starting in 2026 the forgiven amount counts as taxable income.
  • Beyond those two, there are more than 80 career, military, state, employer, and discharge programs. Most borrowers qualify for exactly one, and this list is organized so you can find it.

There is no single student loan forgiveness program. There are dozens, and the one that fits you depends on your job, your loan type, your income, and in some cases your health or what your school did. The July 1, 2026 federal student loan overhaul rewrote the biggest category (income-driven forgiveness), ended the SAVE plan, and made most forgiveness taxable again. It left the career and discharge programs alone.

This list covers every federal path we can verify as of September 2026, grouped by how much debt each one actually cancels for how many people. The first tier is where the money is. The later tiers are real but narrow. If you’re not sure where to start, use the table below, then run your numbers through our student loan calculator.

What’s In This List
  1. Which Forgiveness Path Is Yours?
  2. Tier 1: Federal Programs That Cancel Your Balance
  3. Tier 2: Career-Based Repayment Programs
  4. Tier 3: Military Repayment Programs
  5. Tier 4: State Programs
  6. Tier 5: Employer Assistance
  7. Tier 6: Volunteer Service (AmeriCorps)
  8. Programs That Are Limited, Ended, Or Overstated
  9. Private Student Loans
  10. Tax Consequences In 2026
  11. How To Avoid Scams
  12. Frequently Asked Questions

Which Forgiveness Path Is Yours?

Start with your situation, not the program name. This table covers the paths that cancel the most debt for the most borrowers, with links to each section below.

Find Your Forgiveness Path
Your situation Best path Time to forgiveness Taxable?
Work for government or a 501(c)(3) nonprofit PSLF 120 qualifying payments (10 years) Tax-free
PSLF employment, but time in forbearance PSLF Buyback Pay for missing months, then discharge Tax-free
Private-sector job, loans before July 1, 2026 IBR 20 or 25 years Taxable
Private-sector job, loans after July 1, 2026 RAP 30 years Taxable
Total and permanent disability TPD discharge On approval Tax-free
School closed or defrauded you Closed school / borrower defense Months to years Tax-free
Teacher at a low-income school Teacher Loan Forgiveness 5 years Tax-free
Health care, legal, veterinary, or federal job Career repayment programs 2–3 year service contracts Mostly taxable
Military enlistment Branch repayment programs 3–6 year enlistment Taxable
Private student loans Refinancing or settlement No forgiveness program —
Federal Direct Loans unless noted. Tax status is federal; some states tax forgiveness separately. The College Investor, September 2026.

One distinction matters throughout this list. Forgiveness and discharge cancel your balance. Repayment assistance sends money to your lender while you keep paying. The career, military, state, and employer programs are mostly repayment assistance, and most of it is taxable. The tax section covers the details.

How To Apply: The Three Paths Most Borrowers Use

These programs pay out. The Department of Education’s own figures, compiled in our forgiveness tracker, show what the big federal paths have canceled so far:

$87.6BPSLF1,183,600 borrowers, through Sept. 30, 2025
$56.5BIDR forgiveness1.4 million borrowers via the payment count adjustment
$34.5BBorrower defense and closed school1.95 million borrowers
$18.7BDisability discharge633,000 borrowers

Teacher Loan Forgiveness adds another $4.2 billion for 486,300 teachers through FY2024. Every one of these programs is free to apply for through StudentAid.gov and your servicer. These are the steps for the three that cover the majority of borrowers; the program sections below cover the rest.

PSLF · $87.6 billion forgiven for 1.18 million borrowers
  1. Confirm your employer with the PSLF employer search on StudentAid.gov. Any government agency or 501(c)(3) qualifies.
  2. Make sure your loans are Direct Loans. FFEL and Perkins loans must be consolidated first.
  3. Enroll in IBR or RAP (or the 10-year Standard plan) and pay on time. Since July 1, 2026, late payments don’t count.
  4. Submit the PSLF form through the PSLF Help Tool at least once a year and every time you change jobs. Your servicer updates your qualifying payment count.
  5. At 120 payments, forgiveness is processed automatically. If you have gaps from forbearance, request buyback.
Income-driven forgiveness (IBR or RAP) · $56.5 billion for 1.4 million borrowers
  1. Run both plans through our RAP vs. IBR comparison. Months on IBR count toward RAP’s clock; months on RAP do not count toward IBR’s.
  2. Apply at StudentAid.gov (about 10 minutes) and authorize IRS income sharing so your annual recertification is automatic.
  3. Keep a record of every payment. Forgiveness at 20, 25, or 30 years is processed by the servicer based on the count.
  4. Plan for the tax bill. Use the tax bomb calculator and read the insolvency rules a few years before your date.
Disability discharge · $18.7 billion for 633,000 borrowers
  1. If you receive SSDI or SSI or a VA unemployability rating, the Department matches records automatically and mails a discharge notice. You can opt out but don’t need to apply.
  2. Otherwise, apply at StudentAid.gov with a certification from a physician, NP, PA, or licensed psychologist.
  3. Don’t take out a new federal loan or TEACH Grant for three years after discharge; that’s the only thing that reinstates the debt.

Tier 1

Federal Student Loan Forgiveness Programs That Cancel Your Balance

These paths account for nearly all of the federal student loan debt that actually gets erased. Federal Student Aid data compiled by Student Loan Planner shows PSLF alone had discharged $87.6 billion for 1,183,600 borrowers through September 30, 2025, per FSA’s PSLF reporting. Every program in this tier requires federal Direct Loans (or consolidation into them).

Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF)

Cancels Full remaining balanceTime 120 qualifying paymentsTax Tax-freeStatus Active, unchanged by July 2026 overhaul

PSLF forgives your remaining Direct Loan balance, tax-free, after 120 qualifying monthly payments while working full-time for a qualifying employer. Qualifying employers are any federal, state, local, or tribal government agency and any 501(c)(3) nonprofit. The payments have to be made under an income-driven plan (IBR or RAP for new enrollments; PAYE and ICR until they sunset) or the 10-year Standard plan. Our PSLF qualification breakdown walks through the employer, loan, and payment tests.

Two things changed in 2026. Starting July 1, 2026, a payment only counts if it’s made on time, after the bill is issued and by the due date, under the Department of Education’s final rule. And in August, the Department corrected a counting error that had credited months spent in general or hardship forbearance since May 2024, so some borrowers saw their PSLF counts drop.

The four reasons PSLF forms get denied haven’t changed, according to Federal Student Aid’s PSLF data reports:

  1. Not enough qualifying payments yet. The form was filed before 120, or months in the wrong plan or in forbearance didn’t count.
  2. Missing or mismatched employer information. EIN, dates, or signature problems on the employment certification.
  3. Loans that aren’t Direct Loans. FFEL and Perkins loans have to be consolidated before they count.
  4. Employment dates that don’t cover the payments claimed. A gap between jobs, or a certification that ends before the payment period does.

Three of the four are paperwork, which is why our PSLF walkthrough recommends certifying employment every year rather than waiting until payment 120.

PSLF Buyback

Cancels Forbearance gaps in your 120Backlog ~88,000 pending (Apr 2026)Tax Tax-freeStatus Active, 20+ month waits

Buyback lets you pay for months you spent in deferment or forbearance while working for a qualifying employer, so those months count toward your 120. It’s the main route for borrowers who sat in the SAVE forbearance from 2024 through 2026, since those months earned no PSLF credit on their own. You need 120 months of approved qualifying employment before you can apply, and the buyback amount is calculated using the income-driven plan you were on before SAVE, not SAVE’s formula.

The backlog is the problem. About 88,000 buyback requests were pending as of April 30, 2026, according to the Department’s court-ordered status report, and the Department stopped publishing those reports after May. Approval rates run around 96%, but borrowers who applied in late 2024 were still waiting in August 2026. Periods spent on RAP or the new Tiered Standard plan cannot be bought back.

Temporary Expanded PSLF (TEPSLF)

Cancels Full balance for wrong-plan borrowersFunding ~$800M, first-come first-servedRemaining Roughly half (our estimate)Tax Tax-free

TEPSLF covers borrowers who had qualifying employment and 120 payments but were on the wrong repayment plan (Graduated or Extended, for example). Congress funded it with about $800 million starting in 2018, first-come, first-served. Federal Student Aid data shows $0.3 billion paid out to 7,300 borrowers through mid-2025, per our forgiveness tracker, and by our estimate roughly half of the money is now spent or committed to approved borrowers. At the current pace that leaves two to three years before the fund runs out, and the Department will not announce the end in advance. Our TEPSLF walkthrough explains how to request it, which is now done through the standard PSLF form.

Income-Driven Repayment Forgiveness

Cancels Balance left at end of termTime IBR 20/25 yrs · RAP 30 yrsTax Taxable since Jan 1, 2026

Every income-driven plan forgives whatever balance is left at the end of its term. The July 2026 overhaul cut the menu from four plans to two for new enrollments, and it changed the terms for everyone. Which plan you can use depends on when your loans were disbursed, and our IDR plan comparison covers the full decision.

Income-Based Repayment (IBR) is the legacy plan that survived. If you borrowed before July 1, 2026, you can enroll in IBR: 10% of discretionary income with forgiveness after 20 years if you were a new borrower on or after July 1, 2014, or 15% and 25 years if you borrowed earlier. The “partial financial hardship” test that used to block higher earners from enrolling was removed by the 2025 law, after a delay for system issues. Payments are capped at the 10-year Standard amount.

The Repayment Assistance Plan (RAP) is the new plan and the only income-driven option for loans first disbursed on or after July 1, 2026. Payments run from $10 a month at $10,000 of AGI or less up to 10% of AGI above $100,000, minus $50 per dependent, with unpaid interest waived and up to $50 a month matched toward principal. Forgiveness comes after 360 qualifying payments, or 30 years. Our RAP explainer and RAP calculator cover the formula.

PAYE and ICR still exist for borrowers already enrolled, but both sunset by July 1, 2028. ICR borrowers move to IBR and keep their payment counts. Our PAYE and ICR pages explain what enrolled borrowers should do before then. Parent PLUS loans are excluded from RAP, and consolidations disbursed after June 30, 2026 lost access to IBR too, which closed the double-consolidation path for parents.

SAVE is over. A federal appeals court ordered the plan terminated in March 2026, and servicers began sending 90-day exit notices on July 1. Borrowers who don’t pick a plan get moved to Standard. The forbearance months never counted toward forgiveness, and choosing between RAP and IBR is the decision every former SAVE borrower has to make.

IDR forgiveness is taxable again. The federal tax exclusion for income-driven forgiveness expired December 31, 2025. Anyone reaching 20, 25, or 30 years from here on owes federal income tax on the canceled amount, as we detailed when the tax bomb returned. Borrowers who hit their forgiveness date before 2026 but were processed later won’t get a 1099-C, under the terms of the AFT settlement.

Total And Permanent Disability (TPD) Discharge

Cancels Full balance + TEACH Grant obligationsRoutes Physician/NP/PA/psychologist, SSA, or VATax Permanently tax-free

If you can’t work because of a disability, the Department discharges your federal loans and TEACH Grant obligations. Three routes qualify under 34 CFR 685.213: certification from a physician, nurse practitioner, physician assistant, or licensed psychologist; Social Security documentation showing SSDI or SSI with a review scheduled five to seven years out (or other qualifying criteria); or a VA determination of unemployability due to a service-connected disability. Our disability discharge explainer covers the automatic matching the Department does with SSA and VA records.

There’s a three-year monitoring period after discharge, but income is no longer checked. The only thing that reinstates the loans is taking out a new Direct Loan or TEACH Grant within those three years. TPD discharge is permanently tax-free under the 2025 law, which also made the exclusion apply to private student loans that offer it.

Closed School Discharge

Cancels Loans for the program you couldn’t finishWindow Enrolled, or withdrew within 180 days of closureTax Tax-free

If your school closed while you were enrolled, or within 180 days after you withdrew, and you didn’t finish your program elsewhere through a teach-out or transfer, your federal loans for that program can be discharged. The Department also discharges automatically one year after closure for borrowers who haven’t re-enrolled. The borrower defense and closed-school process runs through your servicer.

Borrower Defense To Repayment

Cancels Loans tied to school misconductStandard 1994 or 2016 rules (2022 rule delayed to 2035)Tax Tax-free

Borrower defense cancels federal loans when a school misled you or broke state law in a way that caused you to borrow. The 2022 rule that would have made claims easier remains blocked by the courts, and the 2025 law delayed it to 2035, so claims are decided under the 1994 or 2016 standards depending on when you borrowed, according to the Department’s current process. Our borrower defense application walkthrough explains which standard applies to you.

The Sweet v. McMahon settlement is still being worked through. Class members whose decisions the Department missed by its deadlines are entitled to full settlement relief, with notices sent in March and June 2026. About 170,000 post-class claims remain in the queue.

False Certification Discharge

If someone took out a federal loan in your name through identity theft, or the school forged your signature or certified you for a loan you weren’t eligible for, you can have it discharged. File a police report, then submit the false certification application through your servicer. Our defrauded-borrower page has the forms.

Death Discharge

Federal student loans, including Parent PLUS loans, are discharged when the borrower dies (or, for Parent PLUS, when the student dies). The discharge is permanently tax-free under the 2025 law. Private loans are different, and what happens to student loans when you die depends on the lender and whether there’s a cosigner, who can be left with the full balance.

Bankruptcy Discharge

Standard Undue hardship (adversary proceeding)DOJ data 87% of first 652 attestation cases dischargedTax Tax-free

Student loans can be discharged in bankruptcy, but only if you prove “undue hardship” through an adversary proceeding. The Justice Department’s November 2022 guidance, which lets borrowers submit an attestation form instead of litigating every factor, is still in effect, and the DOJ reported that 87% of the first 652 cases under it ended in full or partial discharge. Our student loan bankruptcy explainer covers when it’s worth hiring an attorney who does this work.

Tier 2

Career-Based Student Loan Repayment Programs

These programs pay your lender directly in exchange for a service commitment, in nearly every case at a designated shortage site. Nearly all of them are taxable unless the program says otherwise. Health care has the most money by far, and our graduate school forgiveness list goes deeper on the professional-degree programs.

Career Repayment Programs At A Glance (2026)
Program Who Maximum Commitment Tax
NHSC Loan Repayment Primary care, dental, behavioral health $75,000 primary care / $50,000 other (2 yrs) 2 years, HPSA site Tax-free
NHSC Students to Service Final-year med, dental, nursing students $120,000 (+$40,000 maternity care areas) 3 years Tax-free
NHSC Rural Community / SUD Substance use treatment clinicians $100,000 rural / $75,000 SUD 3 years Tax-free
Nurse Corps RNs, APRNs, nurse faculty 60% of debt + 25% optional 3rd year 2–3 years, critical shortage facility Taxable
HRSA Faculty LRP Health-professions faculty $40,000 + tax offset 2 years Offset paid
NIH LRP Biomedical researchers $50,000 per year 50% research time, 2 years Offset paid
Indian Health Service Clinicians at IHS sites $50,000 (2 yrs), renewable 2 years 24% offset
DOJ Attorney SLRP Justice Dept. attorneys $6,000/yr, $60,000 lifetime 3 years $5,250 tax-free
John R. Justice Public defenders, prosecutors $10,000/yr, $60,000 lifetime 3 years Taxable
Federal SLRP (OPM) Federal employees, agency discretion $10,000/yr, $60,000 lifetime 3 years Taxable
USDA Veterinary (VMLRP) Vets in shortage areas $40,000 per year 3 years Taxable
Teacher Loan Forgiveness Teachers at low-income schools $17,500 (math/science/SPED) / $5,000 5 consecutive years Tax-free
Amounts from each agency’s current program page, verified September 2026. Application cycles are annual and most 2026 windows have closed; dates are in each section below.

Health Care

National Health Service Corps (NHSC) Loan Repayment Program. Up to $75,000 for a two-year full-time commitment in primary care at a Health Professional Shortage Area site ($80,000 with the Spanish-language enhancement), or $50,000 for behavioral health and dental. Half-time awards are half those amounts. NHSC awards are tax-free, and the 2026 application cycle closed with awards issued by September 30. Our doctor forgiveness breakdown compares NHSC to PSLF for physicians.

NHSC Students to Service. Up to $120,000 for final-year medical, dental, and nursing students who commit to three years at an NHSC site, plus a $40,000 supplement for maternity care target areas. The next cycle is listed as “opening soon.”

NHSC Substance Use Disorder and Rural Community programs. Up to $75,000 (SUD Workforce) or $100,000 (Rural Community) for three-year commitments at approved treatment sites, per HRSA. Both cycles closed for 2026.

Nurse Corps Loan Repayment Program. Pays 60% of your unpaid nursing education debt over two years, with an optional third year for another 25%, for RNs, APRNs, and nurse faculty at critical shortage facilities. HRSA notes the awards are not tax-exempt. Our nurse forgiveness page covers the state programs that stack with it.

Faculty Loan Repayment Program. Up to $40,000 over two years for health-professions faculty from disadvantaged backgrounds, plus funding to offset the tax, through HRSA.

NIH Loan Repayment Programs. Up to $50,000 per year for researchers who commit at least half their time to qualifying biomedical or behavioral research at a nonprofit or government institution. The extramural cycle opened September 1, 2026 and closes November 19, 2026, with awards starting July 2027.

Indian Health Service Loan Repayment Program. Up to $50,000 for an initial two-year commitment at an Indian health facility, with annual extensions until the debt is repaid. The FY2027 competition opens October 1, 2026.

DOJ Attorney Student Loan Repayment Program (ASLRP). $6,000 per year, $60,000 lifetime, paid directly to the lender for Justice Department attorneys with at least $10,000 in federal loans who sign a three-year service agreement. The 2026 cycle closed May 15; 2027 dates post in the spring. Our lawyer forgiveness page covers law school LRAPs too.

John R. Justice Program. Up to $10,000 per year and $60,000 lifetime for state and federal public defenders and prosecutors with a three-year commitment, administered through state agencies. The FY2025 solicitation totaled $2.46 million nationally, and no FY2026 solicitation had been posted as of September 2026.

Federal Employees

Federal Student Loan Repayment Program. Agencies can pay up to $10,000 per year and $60,000 total toward an employee’s federal loans in exchange for a three-year service agreement. It’s a recruitment tool, not an entitlement: in calendar year 2024, 36 agencies paid $150.8 million to 16,851 employees, an average of $8,951 each, according to OPM’s annual report. The payments are taxable. Our employer repayment assistance list includes federal agencies alongside private companies.

Veterinarians

USDA Veterinary Medicine Loan Repayment Program. Up to $40,000 per year for three years for veterinarians who practice in a USDA-designated shortage area. The FY2026 cycle closed March 5, 2026, with service starting January 1, 2027. Awards are reported on a 1099-G and are taxable.

Teachers

Teacher Loan Forgiveness. Up to $17,500 for secondary math, science, and special education teachers, or $5,000 for other teachers, after five consecutive full academic years at a low-income school listed in the Teacher Cancellation Low Income Directory. It’s tax-free, but the same five years can’t also count toward PSLF, so most teachers with large balances are better off on PSLF alone. A bill to allow both is pending in the Senate and has not moved.

Tier 3

Military Student Loan Repayment

Every branch offers loan repayment as an enlistment incentive, but the terms are set at enlistment, tied to specific occupations, and in most cases require giving up the Montgomery GI Bill. Payments are taxable. Our military borrower resource covers the interest-rate cap and PSLF rules that apply to service members on top of these.

Army College Loan Repayment Program. Up to $65,000 for active-duty enlistees in critical specialties: 33⅓% of the balance or $1,500 per year, whichever is greater, for three years, per Army benefits. The Army Reserve version pays up to $20,000 on a six-year enlistment. Army JAG officers can get up to $65,000, and Army health professionals can get repayment that goarmy.com lists at up to $250,000 depending on specialty.

Navy Loan Repayment Program. Up to $65,000 on federal loans only, available at enlistment and reenlistment for qualifying ratings, per navy.com. Navy health professionals can get up to $40,000 per year, less about 22% withheld for federal tax.

Air Force and Space Force. The enlisted College Loan Repayment Program pays 33⅓% of unpaid principal per year, up to $21,664.50 annually for three years, according to airforce.com. Air Force JAG offers up to $65,000 over three years after the first year of service, contingent on funding.

National Guard and Reserves. The Army National Guard Student Loan Repayment Program pays up to $50,000 (15% or $500 per year, whichever is greater) on a six-year commitment in a critical-skill vacancy. The Air Force Reserve program caps at $3,500 per year and $20,000 lifetime, per ARPC.

Tier 4

State Student Loan Forgiveness Programs

Nearly every state runs at least one repayment program, and most target health care, teaching, or rural work. A few are broader. Our state-by-state directory lists every program we track; these are the ones worth knowing about even if you don’t live there.

Maine Student Loan Repayment Tax Credit. A refundable credit of up to $2,500 per year and $25,000 lifetime for Maine residents paying on loans for an associate, bachelor’s, or graduate degree, per Maine Revenue Services. It’s the closest thing any state has to universal forgiveness.

Maryland SmartBuy 3.0. Pays off up to $25,000 in student debt (raised from $20,000 in June 2026) for first-time homebuyers who finance through the state’s mortgage program, per Maryland DHCD.

California State Loan Repayment Program. $50,000 for a two-year full-time commitment at a qualifying health site, with $20,000 extensions. The 2026 cycle closed September 15; the next opens July 2027.

New York Get On Your Feet. Covers 24 months of income-driven payments for recent graduates earning under $50,000, but HESC lists the program as postponed until fall 2026.

Kansas Rural Opportunity Zones closed to new applicants June 30, 2026. Existing participants continue receiving up to $15,000 over five years.

State programs come with a state tax question too. Several states tax forgiven student debt even when the federal government doesn’t.

Tier 5

Employer Student Loan Repayment Assistance

The 2025 law made the Section 127 exclusion permanent: employers can pay up to $5,250 per year toward your student loans tax-free, and the cap is indexed to inflation starting in 2027, according to the National Association of Tax Professionals. That removed the main reason companies hesitated. Our list of employers offering student loan repayment is updated as programs change.

The benefit is still uncommon. The International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans found 14% of employers offered it in 2024, up from 4% in 2019. Among the larger programs: Fidelity pays up to $15,000 for full-time employees, Google matches up to $2,500 per year, and Chipotle matches student loan payments with up to a 4% 401(k) contribution under the SECURE 2.0 provision that treats loan payments like retirement deferrals. Ask HR before you assume your employer doesn’t offer something; SECURE 2.0 matches in particular are new and under-advertised.

Tier 6

Volunteer Student Loan Forgiveness (AmeriCorps)

AmeriCorps Segal Education Award. Completing a term with AmeriCorps State and National, VISTA, or NCCC earns an education award you can apply to qualified federal or state student loans or to future tuition. The full-time award is tied by law to the maximum Pell Grant for the fiscal year your term is approved, a link written into the program by the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act of 2009, so it moves whenever Congress adjusts Pell. For 2025–2026 that figure is $7,395, per AmeriCorps. Shorter terms earn a set percentage of the full-time award based on the minimum hours required:

  • Full-time (1,700+ hours): 100%, or $7,395 for 2025–2026
  • Three-quarter time (1,200+ hours): 70%
  • Half-time (900+ hours): 50%
  • Reduced half-time (675+ hours): about 39%
  • Quarter-time (450+ hours): about 26%
  • Minimal time or summer associate (300+ hours): about 21%
  • Abbreviated time (100+ hours): about 5.6%

The award is subject to federal and state income tax in the year you use it, and interest that accrued on qualified loans during service can be paid separately on request.

Casual volunteering doesn’t qualify for anything. The award can also pay future tuition, so it’s worth more to someone heading to graduate school than to someone whose remaining balance is already small.

Programs That Are Limited, Ended, Or Overstated

Several programs still show up in search results and forgiveness lists but cancel very little debt today. We keep them here so you know what they actually are.

Perkins Loan Cancellation. No new loans since 2017 Existing Perkins borrowers can still cancel up to 100% over five years (15%, 15%, 20%, 20%, 30%) for qualifying work: teaching in a shortage field or low-income school, nursing, law enforcement, firefighting, Head Start, child and family services, and several others under 34 CFR 674.53. Apply through the school that made the loan. Our Perkins repayment page has the full profession list.

SEMA Loan Forgiveness Program. $2,000, 10 recipients This is a $2,000 award from the SEMA Memorial Scholarship Fund for employees of member companies in the automotive aftermarket, not a government program. Ten people received it in 2026. Applications for 2026 closed in April.

Broad or “hardship” forgiveness. Does not exist There is no general federal forgiveness program. The Supreme Court struck down the $10,000–$20,000 plan in 2023, and the Biden administration withdrew its hardship rule in December 2024. Nothing has replaced either, and the current administration has said it won’t pursue broad cancellation. Any company promising “Biden forgiveness” or “new 2026 forgiveness” for a fee is running a scam.

Foster parents, trade school, and other niche paths. These mostly route through the programs above (PSLF for agency employees, state programs for specific trades). We cover them in foster parent forgiveness and trade school forgiveness.

Private Student Loans

No federal program forgives private student loans. PSLF, IDR, TPD (unless the lender opts in), and every program in the tiers above apply to federal loans only. A handful of lenders discharge on death or disability, and Navient offers a school-misconduct cancellation for select borrowers, but that’s the extent of it.

If your private loan payment is the problem, the tools are refinancing to a lower rate, negotiating a settlement if you’re in default, or bankruptcy under the same undue-hardship standard as federal loans. Our refinance lender comparison covers current rates. Never refinance federal loans into a private loan if you’re pursuing anything on this list; you lose every program in Tier 1 permanently.

Tax Consequences Of Student Loan Forgiveness In 2026

The rules split into three groups after December 31, 2025. Our taxes on forgiveness explainer covers how the 1099-C works; this table is the short version.

Is Your Forgiveness Taxable? (Federal, 2026)
Program Federal tax status Why
PSLF and TEPSLF Tax-free IRC 108(f)(1), unchanged
Death and disability discharge Tax-free Made permanent by the 2025 law; covers private loans too
Teacher Loan Forgiveness, NHSC awards Tax-free Profession-based exclusions in IRC 108(f)
Closed school, borrower defense, false certification Tax-free IRS safe harbor for school-related discharges
Employer assistance (up to $5,250/yr) Tax-free Section 127, permanent, indexed from 2027
IBR, PAYE, ICR, RAP forgiveness Taxable ARPA exclusion expired Dec 31, 2025
Military, state, federal-employee, JRJ, VMLRP, Nurse Corps Taxable Treated as income; some programs pay a partial offset
AmeriCorps award (when used) Taxable Taxed in the year applied to loans or tuition
Federal treatment only. State treatment varies.

The math. $50,000 of taxable forgiveness at a 22% marginal rate adds $11,000 to your federal bill in a single year. That’s still less than $50,000, so forgiveness is worth pursuing, but you need to plan for the bill. Our tax bomb calculator estimates it for your balance and bracket.

Insolvency. If your total debts exceed the fair market value of everything you own on the day the loan is forgiven, you can exclude forgiven debt up to the amount of your insolvency using IRS Form 982. Borrowers reaching 20- or 25-year forgiveness with large balances and modest assets are the ones this helps most, and our insolvency walkthrough shows the calculation.

What Happens After Forgiveness

Your servicer reports the loan to the credit bureaus as paid in full with a zero balance. Forgiveness is not a negative mark; the account simply closes, and your payment history on it stays. Any remaining loans on the same account stay open. If you were mid-buyback or had multiple servicers, check all three reports about 60 days after the discharge letter, and dispute any loan still showing a balance through the Fair Credit Reporting Act process.

For taxable forgiveness, the servicer sends a Form 1099-C the following January showing the canceled amount, which goes on your return as income unless you qualify for the insolvency exclusion. PSLF, death, and disability discharges don’t generate a 1099-C. If you overpaid before a discharge was processed, the Department refunds payments made after your 120th qualifying payment; those refunds have taken months in past cycles, so track the date of your final qualifying payment.

How To Avoid Forgiveness Scams

Every program on this page is free to apply for. The federal ones run through StudentAid.gov and your servicer; the career programs run through the agency that funds them. Companies that charge to “enroll” you in PSLF or IDR are charging for a free form, and the ones promising forgiveness that doesn’t exist are worse. If you want professional help, pay a flat fee to a firm like Student Loan Planner for a plan, not a monthly fee to a “document preparation” company.

Frequently Asked Questions

Am I Eligible For Student Loan Forgiveness?

If you have federal Direct Loans and work for a government agency or 501(c)(3), you’re eligible for PSLF. If you have federal loans and any private-sector job, you’re eligible for IDR forgiveness after 20, 25, or 30 years. Disability, school closure, and fraud have their own discharges. Private loans have none. The table at the top sorts it by situation.

How Long Does Student Loan Forgiveness Take?

PSLF takes 120 qualifying payments, or 10 years. IBR takes 20 or 25 years depending on when you borrowed. RAP takes 30 years. TPD discharge is processed once the Department approves the application; borrowers matched automatically through SSA or VA records are notified and discharged without applying. PSLF buyback and borrower defense claims are the slow ones: buyback requests filed in late 2024 were still pending in August 2026.

What Counts As Public Service For PSLF?

Full-time employment (30 hours or more) with any federal, state, local, or tribal government, or any 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Some non-501(c)(3) nonprofits qualify if they provide specific public services. The PSLF employer search on StudentAid.gov confirms whether yours does.

Can Private Student Loans Be Forgiven?

No federal program forgives them. Death and disability discharge depend on the lender. Refinancing is the main tool for lowering the cost.

Is Student Loan Forgiveness Taxable In 2026?

PSLF, death, and disability discharges are tax-free. IDR forgiveness (IBR, PAYE, ICR, RAP) became taxable again on January 1, 2026. Most career and military repayment programs are taxable. See the tax table.

Does Consolidation Help Or Hurt Forgiveness?

Consolidating FFEL or Perkins loans into a Direct Consolidation Loan makes them eligible for PSLF and IDR. But consolidating after you’ve started counting can reset progress depending on timing, and Parent PLUS consolidations disbursed after June 30, 2026 lost IDR access entirely. Read our consolidation breakdown before you submit the form.

Is There A New Student Loan Forgiveness Program In 2026?

No. The only new program is RAP, which is a repayment plan with 30-year forgiveness, not a cancellation program. Broad forgiveness is not coming.

What Happened To SAVE Borrowers?

SAVE ended by court order in March 2026. Servicers started sending 90-day notices July 1, and borrowers who don’t choose a plan are moved to Standard. Here’s how to pick between RAP and IBR.

Which Repayment Plan Should I Use While Working Toward PSLF?

Whichever gives you the lower payment for the next 120 months. Both IBR and RAP qualify, and your remaining balance is forgiven either way, so the 20-versus-30-year forgiveness difference doesn’t matter for PSLF borrowers. Our RAP vs. IBR comparison shows the crossover income.

Final Thoughts

More than 80 programs, and most borrowers qualify for one. If you work in public service, PSLF is the answer and everything else is noise. If you don’t, your path is IBR or RAP with a tax bill at the end, and the decision is which plan gets you there cheaper. The career, military, and state programs are worth real money for the people they target, and they stack on top of PSLF in most cases.

Start at StudentAid.gov, where every federal program is free to apply for. If your situation has more than one moving part (two borrowers in a household, PSLF plus a career program, a large balance approaching a taxable forgiveness date), a one-time consult with Student Loan Planner or StudentLoanAdvice.com costs less than one wrong plan choice.

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How 16 Real People Paid Off Their Student Loan Debt

Editor: Clint Proctor

Reviewed by: Colin Graves

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