Best Mortgage Approval Rates

Reading the approval-rate column without overreading it

The approval rate in HMDA-derived rankings tells you the share of applications a lender turned into an originated loan in a single reporting year. It does not tell you whether the lender is more lenient than its peers, and it does not predict whether your file will be approved. The reason is simple: every lender's applicant pool is different, and the pool drives the rate as much as the underwriting box does. A specialist VA lender working with active-duty servicemembers and recently separated veterans often shows an approval rate in the high 80s because the applicants who reach the application stage have already been pre-screened by loan officers; a national bank with a broad consumer book may show a rate in the low 70s because it routinely takes applications it ends up declining.

Use the rate as a comparison tool inside loan categories, not across them. A lender that does mostly FHA originations should be compared against other FHA-heavy lenders; a lender that does mostly conforming conventional purchases should be compared against other conventional purchasers. Click into a lender's PlainLender detail page to see its loan-type breakdown, that is where the apples-to-apples comparison begins. The Loan Type table reports HMDA categories (Conventional, FHA, VA, USDA/RHS) and shows applications, originations, and denials by category. A lender at the top of the general approval-rate ranking may sit mid-pack within FHA specifically.

When a high approval rate signals something else

Some high-approval-rate lenders earn the position by doing aggressive pre-application screening. Loan officers walk applicants through a soft credit pull, debt-to-income walkthrough, and asset documentation before HMDA-reportable application is ever opened. The applications that show up in HMDA are the ones the lender already expected to fund. That is a perfectly legitimate sales motion, it produces faster closings and fewer applicant disappointments, but it means the lender's HMDA approval rate underestimates how many prospective borrowers were turned away earlier in the funnel.

The opposite pattern shows up at internet-first and broker-funneled lenders. Online applications are cheap to take, so the funnel widens; many applications never produce a complete file or a final decision and instead become withdrawn or closed-for-incompleteness records. Those records suppress the approval rate even when the lender's underwriting is mainstream. When you compare an internet-first lender's approval rate to a traditional bank's, you are partly comparing application-completion behavior, not just credit standards.

Finally, remember that the rate is annual. This ranking reflects 2024 originations, the most recent HMDA Snapshot published by the CFPB, and rate environments shift quickly. The lenders at the top of the 2024 approval list were funding loans under 2024's rate conditions; the same lenders may show different rankings once a newer HMDA vintage is published and purchase-loan volume rebalances the mix. Cross-reference these rankings with current rate quotes from your shortlist of lenders before drawing conclusions.