By Ziya Y. · 23 Years Banking · FRC Denial Code Intelligence
Score below the lender's minimum — but this minimum may be their overlay, not the agency floor.
FHA minimum: 580. Conventional: 620. VA: no set minimum. If your score exceeds agency minimums, this is a lender overlay. Apply at a lender following agency standards.
🔍 Also explore: All FRC Tools · Lender Comparison · FHA by State · Lender Stress Index
Prices and rates are widely reported. Whether a lender says yes is not. In the complete 2025 federal record, denial rates across the 100 largest FHA lenders ran from 1.8% to 78.7% — same programme, same year.
And it is not simply who applies where: standardizing on state, loan amount, income, debt-to-income and loan-to-value, applicant mix explains only a 2.7× range in expected outcomes.
CFPB HMDA 2025, computed by FinanceRateCalc. Covers the highest-volume lenders published per market, not all lenders. Historical observations, not predictions. CC BY 4.0, not independently reproduced.