The short version
- Information, not advice. Ground Figures publishes public data, calculators and guides for education. It is not financial, tax, legal, investment or lending advice.
- Not a lender. We do not take applications, quote rates, pre-approve, broker or originate loans, and nothing here is an offer of credit or a commitment to lend.
- History, not prediction. Lender figures describe 2025 outcomes. They are not current policy and not a forecast for your application.
- Estimates, not quotes. Calculators use the assumptions shown. Your real numbers come from a licensed lender’s Loan Estimate.
- Errors happen. Source data can be wrong and so can our processing. Tell us and we will fix material errors promptly.
Not financial, tax, legal or lending advice
Everything on this site is general information. It is not tailored to your situation, and it is not advice of any kind. Mortgage decisions involve your credit, income, assets, taxes, local law and the specific loan program, none of which we can see. Talk to a licensed mortgage professional, a tax adviser and, where relevant, an attorney before you act. Do not delay or ignore professional advice because of something you read here.
We are not your lender, and there is no client relationship
Ground Figures is an information publication. It is not a mortgage lender, broker or servicer, and it does not originate, offer, negotiate or arrange loans. The author is a licensed Mortgage Loan Officer; this site is a separate publication and is not a solicitation, advertisement or offer by the author or by any lender. Using the site, its calculators or the contact form does not create a client, fiduciary, advisory or loan-officer relationship, and we cannot give you rate quotes, pre-approvals or loan advice through the site. Views expressed are the author’s own and are not those of any employer or lender.
About the lender data (approvals, rates, fees, lender and state pages)
Source. Lender figures are computed from the public Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) filings for 2025, as published through the CFPB data browser. Lenders self-report these data. We do not audit or verify them, and we cannot guarantee that every filing is accurate or complete.
What the figures are. Counts and percentages of applications that were originated or denied, interest rates and total loan costs on closed loans, and first-listed denial reasons, grouped by lender, state, loan program and DTI or LTV band. We apply filters (owner-occupied, one unit, first lien, site-built, home purchase; originated or denied only; minimum counts) described on the About page.
What the figures are not.
- Not a lender’s policy. An approval rate is an outcome for a pool of applicants, not a rule the lender applies to you. Lenders change guidelines, overlays and pricing continuously.
- Not adjusted for applicant quality. The public file withholds credit score and many other underwriting facts. Lenders that attract stronger or weaker applicants, or that pre-screen before an application is taken, will look better or worse for reasons that have nothing to do with how they treat a given file.
- Not a prediction for you. A high or low percentage does not mean you will or will not be approved, or get that rate or those costs.
- Not a rating, review or recommendation. We do not rank lender quality, service or trustworthiness, and no lender pays for placement or can edit or remove its page.
- Not a fair-lending finding. Approval, denial and rate differences do not show whether any lender complied with, or violated, fair-lending or any other law.
- Not current rates. Rate and cost figures describe loans that closed in 2025. They are not offers, and today’s market differs.
Known limits. Small counts are noisy. Lender names are as filed, and lenders that merged, rebranded, share a parent or file under several legal entities may be split or combined imperfectly. Exempt filers are left out of the figures they did not report. Rate gaps are computed against the national market in the same program, LTV and points cell and are not adjusted for lock date, seller buydowns or other concessions. Builder-owned lenders often price below market because the cost is recovered in the house price.
Names and marks. Lender names and marks belong to their owners and are used only to identify the filer. We are not affiliated with, sponsored by or endorsed by any lender, the CFPB, the FFIEC, FHFA, HUD, VA or any other agency.
About the delinquency data
The delinquency pages use the CFPB and FHFA National Mortgage Database, a 5% sample of first-lien, closed-end, 1–4 family mortgages drawn from credit-bureau records, published by state, metro area and county and by month. It does not identify lenders, loan programs, credit scores or DTI, and it is not a measure of any lender or loan. Reported delinquency was understated during the pandemic and after some disasters, places with small samples are omitted, and earlier months are revised in later releases. The comparison with approval rates is a descriptive correlation across states and does not show cause. Nothing here predicts future delinquency, home prices or your own outcome.
About the calculators and scenarios
Calculators and scenario pages apply published formulas to the inputs you enter or that are shown. Results are estimates. They are not a Loan Estimate or Closing Disclosure, rate quote, approval, pre-approval or offer of credit. Actual payments, rates, fees, taxes, insurance, mortgage insurance and closing costs vary by lender, property, location, credit profile and date, and defaults on the page are examples, not forecasts. Assumptions are shown so you can change them; you are responsible for the inputs you choose. We test the arithmetic, but we do not warrant that any calculator is free of error or suitable for your purpose. Rounding can make displayed figures differ by a small amount from the underlying calculation.
Calculators run in your browser and what you type into them is not sent to us. The property analyzer is the exception described below.
About the property analyzer
When you enter an address, it is sent to a third-party property-data provider to retrieve the property record and local market figures. Those data (characteristics, value and rent estimates, market statistics) can be wrong, incomplete or out of date. The analyzer is not an appraisal, broker price opinion, valuation or investment advice, and its output should not be used to make an offer, set a price or underwrite a loan.
About the guides
Guides explain how mortgage rules and underwriting generally work, including where published guidelines and real-world practice differ. Agency handbooks, program rules, tax law and lender policies change, lenders may impose stricter overlays than any published rule, and state law varies. Each guide shows the date it was last reviewed; it was accurate to the best of our knowledge on that date and may not be current when you read it. We distinguish guidelines from requirements where we can, but you should confirm any rule that matters to you against the current source and with your lender.
Links, advertising and third parties
The site links to government sources, data providers and other third-party sites that we do not control, and we are not responsible for their content or practices. A link is not an endorsement. The site displays advertising served by Google and its partners; ads are not endorsements, we do not control which ads appear, and advertisers have no influence over any figure, ranking or page. We currently have no affiliate relationships; if that changes, affected links will be marked.
No warranty, and your responsibility
The site and everything on it is provided “as is” and “as available.” We make reasonable efforts to be accurate and current, but we do not guarantee that any figure, calculation, claim or page is accurate, complete, current or fit for a particular purpose. You are responsible for deciding whether to rely on anything here, and you should verify anything important with the original source, a licensed lender and a qualified professional. Our liability is limited as described in the Terms of Use.
Corrections
If a figure is wrong, a rule is out of date, or a lender page does not match the public filing, use the contact form and choose “Correction request.” Include the page, the figure and, where possible, the source. We review reports promptly, correct material errors, and note significant corrections on the page. A lender may ask us to correct a factual error in its page; we do not remove accurate figures drawn from the public record, and we do not accept payment to change or hide them.