Every lender on this site is compared the same way, on the things that actually cost you money or make a loan easier to live with. Here's the method, in the open.
What we compare
Cost — rate and fees. APR range (the yearly cost with fees included), origination fees, and any prepayment penalty. This carries the most weight, because it's what you pay.
Loan terms. Loan amounts, term lengths, and flexibility like changing your due date.
Eligibility. Credit and income requirements, and how clearly the lender states them.
Funding speed. How fast money reaches you after approval.
Customer experience. Support, transparency, and complaint history from public sources.
The facts we verify for every lender — before it appears here
Big comparison sites publish scoring formulas with weights down to the percent. We don't score — no stars, no grades — because a score hides judgment calls inside a number. Instead, here is the exact checklist of facts we verify for every lender, and where each one comes from:
1. It's real and currently lending. Confirmed on the lender's own official site — not from another comparison site or an old article. Lenders quit product lines more often than you'd think; when one does, we remove it and say so.
2. What it actually offers. Which loan types, and any products it has dropped. (Example we caught: Discover still makes personal loans but stopped taking home equity applications — plenty of sites still recommend the dead product.)
3. Its name, today. Renames and buyouts happen (LendingClub became Happen Bank; Bethpage became FourLeaf). We list the current name and note the old one.
4. Fee claims. "No origination fee" or "no fees" appears here only when the lender's own site says it.
5. Rate-check method. Whether checking a rate is a soft pull (no score impact) or a hard inquiry — from the lender's own wording.
6. Where it lends. State coverage, only when the lender publishes it. Our filters hide a lender only when its own site confirms it doesn't serve your state.
7. License IDs. Mortgage lenders' NMLS numbers (their ID in the Nationwide Multistate Licensing System) come only from the official registry at nmlsconsumeraccess.org — never from memory.
8. What others report. Complaint themes from the CFPB (Consumer Financial Protection Bureau) public complaint database and regulator actions — cited and named, never averaged into a made-up score.
Each check carries a date. When a fact can't be verified, the page shows "—" or "[verify]" in that spot — a blank is honest; a guess isn't. And a lender that won't disclose something doesn't get the benefit of the doubt: the blank stays visible so you can weigh the silence yourself.
Our promises
- We only list what we've verified. If we haven't run the checklist above on a lender, it isn't here.
- We show our work. Every comparison is dated and sourced, and our editorial policy covers how corrections work.
Reviewed by AI and James Mills, retired financial planner with Professional Designations (25-year career), former FL mortgage and real estate broker. The specific rates and terms we cite come from lenders and regulators. Rates and terms change frequently, always check with the source for current information.