Mortgage Denial Rates by County - 2025 HMDA Data Across 136 U.S. Counties

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Last verified on: August 5, 2026

Editorial note: This guide is for educational planning and public-data comparison only. HMDA shows aggregate outcomes, not the full underwriting file behind each decision. This is not a fair-lending legal analysis, lender review, or financial advice.

Research Method

We aggregated 2025 home-purchase rows from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) combined modified Loan Application Register (LAR) file, published March 31, 2026. We filtered to loan purpose = home purchase and actions 1 through 5 (originated, approved not accepted, denied, withdrawn, closed incomplete). Purchased loans and preapproval requests were excluded.

We did not guess. We streamed the combined modified LAR, filtered to the criteria above, and aggregated by county FIPS code. County names come from the Census 2020 FIPS manifest. This is the same methodology we used for our Texas vs California denial rates analysis.

Top 10 Counties With the Highest Denial Rates

These counties had the steepest application-to-denial ratios in the 2025 HMDA data. All 10 exceeded 13% - well above the median county denial rate of 9.85% across our dataset.

Florida and Michigan each place three counties in the top 10. Harris County, Texas (Houston metro) stands out by volume - nearly 69,000 applications with almost 9,600 denials.

Bottom 10 Counties With the Lowest Denial Rates

These counties had the most favorable application outcomes. All 10 fell below 5.7%, less than half the top-10 average.

Colorado and Virginia dominate the bottom 10. These counties share high median household incomes, strong employment bases, and borrower pools with higher credit scores and lower debt-to-income ratios.

Denial Rates by State: County Range

A statewide denial rate hides enormous variation. The table below shows each state’s overall rate alongside the range of county-level rates we observed.

New York has the widest spread at 10.92 percentage points between its lowest and highest county denial rates. Washington has the tightest spread at just 0.72 points - its counties cluster closely around the state average.

What Drives County-Level Differences

HMDA records outcomes, not reasons. But several structural factors consistently separate high-denial counties from low-denial ones:

Borrower income relative to home prices. Counties where median income barely covers median home prices show higher denial rates. The debt-to-income ratio gets squeezed, and more applications fail the underwriting threshold.

Loan type mix. Counties with higher FHA and VA shares tend to have different denial patterns than conventional-heavy markets. FHA has lower credit score floors but stricter DTI limits. VA loans have no DTI cap in the automated system but apply manual underwriting above certain thresholds.

Credit profile distribution. Counties with larger populations of first-time buyers, younger borrowers, or lower average credit scores show higher denial rates - not because lenders are stricter, but because the applicant pool has more files that fall outside automated approval parameters.

Lender competition. Markets with more lender options sometimes show lower denial rates because borrowers can shop for fits. Markets dominated by a few large lenders may show higher rates if the local lender mix skews toward stricter overlays.

File completion patterns. The “closed incomplete” category varies significantly by county. Some markets have higher withdrawal and incomplete rates, which affects the originated share even if the denial rate looks moderate.

How Buyers Should Use This Data

Think of county denial rates as market context, not a personal score.

If you are shopping in a high-denial county:

1. Get pre-approved before you start touring homes - it tells you where you stand in that specific market.
2. Ask your lender what denial reasons appear most often in that county (HMDA data publishes aggregate reasons, but your lender sees local patterns).
3. Consider whether a different loan type (FHA vs conventional vs VA) might fit your profile better.
4. Factor in a longer search timeline - higher denial rates often correlate with more competitive markets.

If you are shopping in a low-denial county:

1. Low denial rates do not mean automatic approval - they reflect a borrower pool with stronger aggregate profiles.
2. You still need competitive credit, income documentation, and a solid down payment.
3. Low-denial counties often have higher home prices - the denial rate is favorable, but the payment may still stretch your budget.

What This Means for Your Monthly Payment

Denial rates are one input to your home-buying decision. The other is whether you can actually afford the monthly payment once you are approved.

Use the Mortgage Calculator to estimate principal and interest, then add property tax, homeowners insurance, and PMI if your down payment is under 20%. For state-specific tax and insurance inputs, try the Texas Mortgage Calculator or Florida Mortgage Calculator.

If you are comparing FHA vs conventional, the FHA Loan Calculator shows how mortgage insurance premium (MIP) changes the monthly picture compared to private mortgage insurance (PMI).

Calculator Methodology

The mortgage calculator estimates the fixed principal-and-interest payment with the standard amortization formula:

Monthly P&I = L x [r(1 + r)^n] / [(1 + r)^n - 1]

Where:

• L is loan amount
• r is monthly interest rate
• n is the number of monthly payments

For affordability planning, the calculator can also model taxes, insurance, and PMI. We do not use it to predict approval - only to stress-test whether a payment looks realistic after you have seen the denial-rate context.

Common Mistakes When Reading County Denial Rates

• Treating a county rate as your personal approval probability
• Comparing a county rate from one state with a state rate from another without checking the denominator
• Ignoring the minimum application threshold (counties with fewer than 100 applications are excluded)
• Assuming high denial rates mean lender discrimination rather than borrower mix differences
• Using a county rate from a different loan purpose (refinance vs home purchase)
• Forgetting that withdrawal and incomplete-file rates affect the originated share independently of the denial rate

The safer habit: state the year, source, filters, denominator, and minimum application threshold every time.

Official and Supporting Sources:

• CFPB: 2025 HMDA Data on Mortgage Lending Now Available
• FFIEC/CFPB: HMDA Data Browser
• FFIEC: Modified LAR schema (field positions)
• CFPB: Home Mortgage Disclosure Act Data
• CFPB: Beginner’s Guide to Accessing and Using HMDA Data

Related Reading

• DTI Mortgage Prequalification Guide - front-end and back-end ratios lenders use
• FHA vs Conventional Loan - how loan type changes approval odds
• Credit Score Required for Each Mortgage Type - score floors by program
• Closing Costs Explained - what buyers pay at settlement
• PMI Removal Guide - when and how to cancel private mortgage insurance

Next step: Use the Mortgage Calculator to estimate the monthly payment behind a loan application. If you are targeting a specific county, check the denial-rate context above, then model your payment with local tax and insurance estimates before you treat the number as affordable.