FinanceRateCalc · Pre-registered · 2 September 2026

Ten predictions about data that does not exist yet

The persistence paper (SSRN 7341481) says the FHA lender hierarchy barely moves. If that finding is real, it should predict the future — so we are writing the predictions down before the 2026 HMDA record exists, and we will grade every one of them publicly when CFPB releases it (expected mid-2027). Misses will be published as misses.

Published: 2026-09-02 · Universe: the 11 lenders of SSRN 7341481 · Metric: denied/(originated+denied), FHA forward, full-year 2026 HMDA · SHA-256 of the prediction list: 0d38c83a3ab6ec96f46b29873ffd582bb72d4311b877bcec8dab54fc516a6d65
P1 — CrossCountry Mortgage will rank 1st or 2nd (lowest denial rate) among these 11 lenders in the 2026 HMDA record.
Grading rule: Rank outside top 2 = MISS.
P2 — Guild Mortgage will rank in the top 3.
Grading rule: Rank outside top 3 = MISS.
P3 — The between-lender share of pooled variance across the 11-lender panel will remain above 70% when 2026 is appended.
Grading rule: Share ≤70% = MISS.
P4 — The Spearman rank correlation between the 2025 and 2026 orderings will be at least 0.85.
Grading rule: ρ < 0.85 = MISS.
P5 — No lender classified 'stable' in SSRN 7341481 will move by more than ±5 percentage points from its 2025 denial rate.
Grading rule: Any stable-class move >5pp = MISS.
P6 — United Wholesale Mortgage's emerging upward shift will persist: its 2026 rate will exceed its 2023 rate.
Grading rule: 2026 ≤ 2023 = MISS.
P7 — Freedom Mortgage and PennyMac will remain below their 2019 rates (no reversal of their downward regime shifts).
Grading rule: Either ≥2019 level = MISS.
P8 — NewRez and Wells Fargo will remain above their 2021 rates (no reversal of the 2021–22 upward break).
Grading rule: Either ≤2021 level = MISS.
P9 — The softest and hardest doors will NOT swap: the 2025 softest lender will not rank in the bottom half, and the 2025 hardest will not rank in the top half.
Grading rule: Any such swap = MISS.
P10 — At most one NEW regime shift of ≥5pp (single-year LRT boundary, magnitude threshold) will appear across the 11 lenders in 2026.
Grading rule: Two or more new ≥5pp shifts = MISS.

Rules we bind ourselves to

The prediction list above is frozen; its hash is printed and will not change. When the 2026 data is released we will publish a scorecard on this page: HIT or MISS for each line, no reinterpretation, no quiet edits — any correction goes through the public corrections log. These are statements about aggregate lender-year rates in the public federal record. They are not predictions about any individual application, and a high or low rate is not evidence of misconduct.

FinanceRateCalc · Independent analysis of the complete federal HMDA record · Measured, not assumed. · No lender or AI vendor funds or previews this work. · Door Effect · Open Data · Corrections