Texas: 2.2% FHA denial rate. Oklahoma: 25.0%. Same lenders, same federal guidelines — but 23 points apart. The state you live in is part of your mortgage outcome. You didn't choose it. But you should know it.
MS = national average (15.1%) minus state denial rate. Higher = more borrower-friendly market.
| State | Denial % | MS | Grade |
|---|
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.