What this is
Every mortgage lender in the United States reports every application it decides to the federal government under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act. The file is public. It is also enormous, badly documented, and published in a form nobody outside a research desk can read. Ground Figures reads it, filters it down to the loans ordinary buyers actually take, and publishes the result as lender pages, state pages and a handful of explorers.
The question it answers is the one a calculator cannot: not what is my payment, but who will say yes. At 52% DTI, a conventional application was approved 35% of the time nationally in 2025. In Iowa, across every lender, it was 60%. At the largest online lender it was 3%. Same guideline, same borrower, different answer. That gap is the product.
Who builds it
Research and fact-checking by Roja Mittapalli. Every guide is checked against the agency handbook it cites before it is published, and the handbook version is named in the sources.
Where the data comes from
All lender figures come from the CFPB HMDA data browser, 2025 reporting year. We do not survey lenders, we do not take submissions, and no lender can edit its own page.
| Filter | Setting | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Purpose | Home purchase | Refinance decisions follow different rules |
| Occupancy | Owner-occupied, 1 unit | The file a normal buyer brings |
| Lien, build | First lien, site-built | Excludes HELOCs, manufactured housing, reverse and business loans |
| Outcome | Originated or denied | Withdrawn and incomplete files are not a lender decision |
| Lender pages | ≥1,000 decisions | Below that, a single quarter can swing the rate |
| Rate and fee gaps | 30-year fixed, within program and LTV band | FHA fees include the upfront premium; comparing them to conventional is meaningless |
DTI bands follow the HMDA buckets: ≤43%, 44–45%, 46–49%, 50–60%, over 60%. Where a lender reports a field as exempt, that lender is left out of that figure rather than guessed at. The full method, including the rate-gap calculation, is on the rates page and the fees page.
Standards
- A guideline is not a rule. Where we say 43% DTI, we say it is a guideline. Where we say 15% condo reserves, we say it is a requirement. The difference is the whole point of the site.
- Total cost, not monthly payment. Every comparison on the site is cash at close, plus payments made, plus what you still owe. A payment-only comparison hides principal paydown and is how buydowns and HELOCs get mis-sold.
- Opportunity cost is always in. Rent-vs-buy and pay-down-vs-invest comparisons include what the cash would have earned elsewhere. Leaving it out always favors buying.
- Every number is computed. Calculators run published amortization formulas with every assumption shown and editable. Data pages show the count behind every percentage.
- We say when we do not know. Approximate figures are labeled approximate and linked to the authoritative source.
How it is funded, and what it will never do
Advertising
Standard display ads. They never touch a number on the page.
Tools for loan officers
A paid version of the same data for brokers deciding where to place a file.
Paid placement
No sponsored rows, no featured lenders, no lender can buy a better position or remove a worse one.
Lead generation
We do not sell your details to lenders, and the author does not originate loans through this site.
The calculators
Twenty calculators, each written from the standard amortization formula and the agency rule it models, with the rule cited on the page. Monthly principal and interest is:
Taxes, insurance, mortgage insurance and HOA dues are added on top to produce the full payment. Amortization schedules are generated month by month from the same formula, so totals always reconcile with the payment above them. All calculators.
Privacy and corrections
Calculators run in your browser; nothing you type is sent to us. The property analyzer sends the address you enter to a property-data provider to fetch the record, and nothing else. The site uses cookie-free analytics (Umami) that count which pages, calculators and data filters get used, never what you type, and displays ads that may use cookies. No account, no email and no personal details are needed for any tool or data page. Privacy policy.
If a figure is wrong, a rule is out of date, or a lender page does not match the public file, tell us. Material corrections are made promptly and noted on the page.