Liz Reese: How to Keep the House in a Divorce

No lender will count child support or alimony toward your loan on the strength of a court order alone. They want to see the money arriving, month after month, in an account with your name on it. Liz Reese says that one fact decides who gets to keep the house, and most people learn it far too late.

Liz Reese, known to a lot of people as Loan Lady Liz, is a mortgage broker based in California and licensed in California and Utah, with a professional designation in divorce mortgage guidance. She also specializes in reverse mortgages, which she explains is unexpectedly relevant in later-life divorces where splitting assets and buying a new home is hard to qualify for. She grew up in a divorced family herself, and she works deliberately as a neutral party rather than an advocate for one side. This is her second appearance on the show.

She and Lisa start with the mechanics. Why a divorce buyout can often be structured as an ordinary refinance instead of a costlier cash-out loan, and the strict limit on that. Why monthly alimony is easier to qualify on than a lump sum. The six-month deposit history a lender wants, and why you can start building it before anything is signed. What a stay-at-home parent can do to qualify, including the difference between a salaried job, which counts immediately, and hourly work, which does not. Liz also lists the team she thinks people need alongside the attorney, and notes that a conversation with a mortgage professional costs nothing because the fee comes out of the transaction.

The second half is judgment rather than mechanics. One accountant's blanket advice to sell everything you own jointly, and the client who kept a rental property and inherited a forty thousand dollar tax bill she should have split. Why Liz pushes people to inspect the house before buying an ex out, with a story about eighty thousand dollars of water damage found under a home nobody suspected. And the part that is not about money at all: what a house represents when everything else is in motion, what house poor really means, and how to give a child some control over a bedroom in a place they did not choose.

As always, this is strategic education, not legal or mental-health advice for your specific situation.

🎓 What you'll learn

• Why a divorce buyout can often be a regular refinance instead of a pricier cash-out loan
• How to set up alimony and child support so a lender can actually count them as income
• The deposit history lenders want, and why you can start building it before the decree
• Qualifying as a stay-at-home parent, and why salaried and hourly jobs are treated differently
• Why to get the house inspected before you buy your ex out of it
• What "house poor" means, and how to weigh stability against affordability
• The team beyond your attorney: a divorce-literate CPA, a real estate agent, and a mortgage professional
• What helps kids settle into a new home when the move was not their choice

⏱️ Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:00 Meet Liz: divorce mortgage guidance and reverse mortgages
3:00 How a loan changes in a divorce, and the buyout refinance
4:30 Setting up support payments so a lender can count them
8:30 Your team, and why the mortgage conversation costs nothing
10:00 What the house represents, and what "house poor" means
13:30 "Sell everything": one CPA's advice, and a tax bill nobody planned for
15:30 Relocation, school districts, and living near your ex
19:30 Helping kids settle in, and the case for staying put
22:30 Qualifying as a stay-at-home parent: salary vs. hourly
25:30 Why you inspect the house before you buy your ex out
29:30 Getting through it, and where to find Liz

Keep going 💜
Book a free 30-minute discovery call and we'll help you map your next steps: https://beentheregotout.com/call
📘 Been There Got Out: Toxic Relationships, High-Conflict Divorce, and How to Stay Sane Under Insane Circumstances — https://www.amazon.com/dp/194627495X
📘 Been There Got Out: When Your Ex Turns the Kids Against You (our parental-alienation book) — https://www.amazon.com/dp/1967674183
🔗 Liz Reese (Loan Lady Liz) on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/loanladyliz/

About Been There Got Out
Chris Barry and Lisa Johnson are high-conflict divorce, custody, and co-parenting strategists, and the founders of Been There Got Out. They know these cases from the inside: both have successfully represented themselves in family court. Few attorneys have a playbook for a case like this — Chris and Lisa write yours with you, so you and your kids can get through it as unscathed as possible.