Dear John: I am a retired senior who wants to buy property and build a home. I want to rent out the home I currently own.. I will be seeking a 30-year conventional mortgage on the new place. How much of the mortgage process should I do online? A.A.

Dear A.A.: You can’t get a mortgage on a vacant piece of land. You’ll have to get a construction loan to build and then get whatever mortgage you want once you have a certificate of occupancy.

Or, says Steven W. Kaye of American Economic Planning Group in Watchung, N.J., you can work a deal out where the builder puts down his money and turns the finished property over to you.

Both Kaye and I like the internet for certain things. Let online mortgages be your stalking horse and then use the offers to negotiate with local banks.

The banks will likely want to know that you can financially carry two places. So they might want to see a lease rather than just your say-so that your original property can be rented. Try the AARP for banks that seek out customers over 65.

Dear John: Bashing oilmen is just too easy. If you really want to uncover corruption, look into healthcare. Did you know that the top 10 drug companies made more money than the other 490 companies in the Fortune 500, combined? E.D.

Dear E.D.: Funny you should mention this, Ed – and I hope you don’t mind me calling you Ed – but reforming the healthcare system in America is on my “to do” list. Only it’s on next year’s list.

Really, I won’t even bother to look at your claim that the top 10 drug companies made more than the other 490 companies combined. Since oil companies had a pretty good showing last year, that claim on the surface seems preposterous.

But even if you think drug companies are making too much money, remember that they are putting a big hunk of their profits back into research.

So maybe – just maybe – they are going to develop a little pill that’ll keep people like you in the future from saying stupid things.

Are healthcare costs in this country too high? Sure.

Are the uninsured getting a raw deal? Absolutely.

Is this an issue that I’d like to tackle during the breaks between fighting the oil interests and making fun of Dick Grasso? Yep.

Would I rather see drug companies make too much money rather than oil speculators? Without a doubt – because there’s a better chance of that money going into a cure for cancer than into another summer home for some rich, spoiled Wall Street speculator.

Send your questions to Dear John, The N.Y. Post, 1211 Ave. of the Americas, N.Y., N.Y., 10036, or john.crudele@nypost.com.