Do mortgage lenders get stricter or looser over time?

Both, and which one depends on the institution. Across eight years of federal HMDA data (2018-2025) for major FHA lenders, some held a narrow band the entire time — CrossCountry between 5.5% and 8.6%, Guild between 6.3% and 9.7% — while others swung enormously: Freedom Mortgage ranged from 9.8% to 49.0% and PennyMac from 23.6% to 52.8%. The volatile institutions are concentrated in refinance-heavy business models, which are far more sensitive to the interest-rate cycle.

Is a lender's denial rate from last year still useful?

For stable institutions, yes — several major FHA lenders held rates within a three-point band across eight years. For volatile ones a single year says much less, because the same institution ranged across tens of percentage points depending on the rate environment.

Official federal data → published methodology → reproducible calculation → FinanceRateCalc interpretation
We are not the source. We are the layer that makes the source usable — and every step above is checkable.

FRC Research · eight-year series

Some doors barely move in eight years. Others swing forty points.

Every denial table, including ours, is a photograph of one year. It cannot tell you whether the institution you are looking at holds a steady line or moves with the weather — and for a borrower those are different risks entirely.

Here are eight consecutive years of federal HMDA filings for major FHA lenders, 2018 through 2025.

The trajectory table

Lender	2018 → 2025	Range	Swing	Net
Freedom	█▃▁▁▃▅▄▃	7.6–49.0%	41.4 pts	-26.2	loosened
NewRez	▆▂▁▂█▅▅▇	26.6–61.6%	35.1 pts	+4.4	tightened
PennyMac	█▇▆▁▃▃▁▁	23.6–52.8%	29.2 pts	-29.2	loosened
loanDepot	█▅▁▃▇█▇▆	24.5–40.0%	15.4 pts	-5.0	loosened
Mr. Cooper	█▃▁▁▅▃▃▄	20.1–34.3%	14.2 pts	-7.4	loosened
Wells Fargo	▁▁▃▃█▆▇▂	46.7–60.4%	13.7 pts	+1.9	stable
Planet Home	█▂▁▂▇▇▄▁	16.9–30.4%	13.5 pts	-12.1	loosened
UWM	▃▁▅▃▅▅▇█	12.2–21.6%	9.3 pts	+5.9	tightened
Rocket	█▃▃▁▅▂▁▄	27.9–34.8%	6.9 pts	-4.3	loosened
Guild	▃▁▁▃█▅▂▂	6.3–9.7%	3.3 pts	-0.1	stable
CrossCountry	█▁▁▃▄▃▁▃	5.5–8.6%	3.1 pts	-2.2	stable

Each bar is one year, 2018 on the left. Colour shows position within that lender's own range — green at its loosest, orange at its strictest.

What the shapes say

The steady doors. CrossCountry moved within 3.1 points across eight years, Guild within 3.3. These institutions applied roughly the same standard through a zero-rate boom, an inflation shock and a tightening cycle. Whatever their level, it is predictable — and a prior-year figure remains informative.

The swinging doors. Freedom ranged from 7.6% to 49.0% — a 41.4-point swing. NewRez from 26.6% to 61.6%. For these, a single year tells you much less, because the same institution behaved very differently depending on the rate environment.

The pattern behind the volatility. The institutions that swing most are the refinance-heavy ones. Refinance demand collapses and surges with interest rates, and the applicant pool changes shape with it — so the same underwriting standard produces very different denial rates in different years. The steady institutions are purchase-focused, where the applicant pool is more consistent. Neither shape is better; they are different businesses, and knowing which you are dealing with is the useful part.

Why this matters if you are shopping

If a lender has held a narrow band for eight years, last year's figure is a reasonable guide to this year. If it has swung across tens of points, it is not — and asking directly how their standards have changed recently is a fair question with a real answer behind it.

This is also the answer to a reasonable objection to every denial table published anywhere: is a prior-year number still valid? For most of these institutions the ranking is remarkably persistent — the softest doors stayed softest and the hardest stayed hardest across the whole period, even as levels moved.

Current approval rates → Your metro → Download the series →

Source: CFPB Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, 2018–2025, processed by FinanceRateCalc. Denominator note: this series uses originated + denied (HMDA actions 1 and 3), whereas the current-year lender tables on this site use decisioned applications (actions 1, 2, 3). Rates therefore differ slightly between the two — neither is wrong, they answer slightly different questions, and mixing them without noting the difference is a common error in published comparisons. Coverage is limited to institutions present in the series across all eight years. Denial rates reflect applicant composition as well as lender practice; historical observations, not predictions about any individual application. CC BY 4.0 · DOI 10.5281/zenodo.21575105 · not independently reproduced.