Mortgage Guides
Understand mortgage lending data and make better borrowing decisions. These guides explain how the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) dataset of 12.2 million applications tracks approval rates, denial reasons, and lending patterns across 4,908 lenders. Learn what the data reveals about why mortgages get denied and how to compare lenders before you apply.
Understanding HMDA Mortgage Data
What the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data reveals about lending patterns, how it's collected, and what it means for borrowers.
Why Mortgage Applications Get Denied
The most common denial reasons in HMDA data, what lenders look for, and how approval rates vary by lender and location.
How to Compare Mortgage Lenders with Data
Using approval rates, loan volume, and denial patterns from federal data to evaluate lenders before applying.
How to Get the Best Mortgage Rate
Credit score impact, down payment strategies, discount points, and shopping tactics, with a table of rate factors and their typical impact.
Mortgage Denial Rates: What HMDA Data Shows
How denial rates vary by loan type, income level, and property type across 12.2 million applications, and what the patterns mean for borrowers.
Methodology
All guides are grounded in the CFPB 2024 HMDA Snapshot National Loan-Level Dataset - the official federal record of US mortgage lending activity, published by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and distributed via the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC). HMDA requires lenders to report every application they receive, making the dataset uniquely comprehensive: it covers conventional, FHA, VA, and USDA loans; home purchase, refinance, and home improvement purposes; and every outcome from origination to denial.
Approval (origination) rate = originated loans ÷ total applications. Denial rate = denied applications ÷ total applications. Rates do not sum to 100% because HMDA also records withdrawals, applications approved but not accepted, and files closed for incompleteness. Rankings exclude lenders with fewer than 1,000 applications to ensure statistical reliability.
Demographic lending figures reflect CFPB derived categories as reported by applicants. See the full methodology page for the complete data pipeline.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where does PlainLender's mortgage data come from?
All data is sourced from the CFPB HMDA 2024 Snapshot National Loan-Level Dataset, a public federal dataset covering 12.2 million mortgage applications filed by over 4,900 lenders. It is the primary public source for US mortgage market transparency.
What topics do these mortgage guides cover?
The guides cover understanding HMDA data, common reasons mortgage applications get denied, how to compare lenders using federal approval and denial rate data, strategies for getting the best mortgage rate, and what HMDA patterns reveal about denial rates across loan types and income levels.
How often is the mortgage lending data updated?
HMDA data is published annually by the CFPB, typically in March or April of the following year. The current dataset reflects 2024 mortgage applications. PlainLender will update to the 2025 dataset when it becomes available.