This fifth part in the Mortgage Market series will focus specifically on the nation’s 50 largest home purchase lenders and the dramatic market shift documented in Part 1 where refinance volumes collapsed due to rising interest rates.
By examining home purchase lending – the primary pathway for first-time homebuyers and those seeking to grow wealth through homeownership – we reveal a market dominated by non-bank mortgage companies. This market is plagued by a severe crisis in serving low- and moderate-income borrowers and characterized by troubling disparities in demographic access.
Our analysis divides these lenders into volume-based quintiles to assess how their size correlates with their rates of community investment. There were several concerning patterns that suggest market concentration may be actively harmful to equitable lending outcomes, which will be explored in this analysis.
This report uses some terms that are important to understand from the beginning:
- A Low- and Moderate-Income Borrower (LMIB) is someone whose household income is 80% or less of the typical family income in their area.
- A Low- and Moderate-Income Census Tract (LMICT) is a neighborhood where the typical family income is 80% or less of what families usually earn in that broader region.
- A Majority-Minority Census Tract (MMCT) is a neighborhood where more than half of the residents are people of color or are from racial and ethnic minority groups.
NCRC members can request detailed analyses of lenders in their community by contacting our Member Engagement team.
Jason Richardson, Senior Director of Research
Resources
For the complete series, including videos, interactive visualizations and localized market analysis, visit our 2025 Mortgage Market series homepage. NCRC members can request customized community data requests as well. Those interested in membership benefits should contact Ralph Cyrus (Membership Engagement Specialist) at rcyrus@ncrc.org.
Key Takeaways
1
Mortgage companies dominate while banks retreat, undermining accountability: Mortgage companies now hold 69.8% of the top 50 market share (up from 62.1% in 2020), while banks declined to 29.5%. Banks have the responsibility under the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) to serve all communities regardless of their income level. Mortgage companies lack such oversight and are free to pick and choose the communities in which they operate. This allows neighborhoods that have been traditionally excluded from mortgage lending to remain at the margins of the surest path to building wealth in America: home ownership.
2
Market concentration affects millions of families: Just 50 lenders control 52.0% of all home purchase loans, making their lending decisions more influential than thousands of smaller institutions combined.
3
Low-income lending crisis deepens: Lending to low- and moderate-income (LMI) borrowers dropped from 29.0% in 2020 to 24.9% in 2024. If the top 50 lenders maintained their 2020 rates, they could serve an additional 62,674 LMI families annually.
4
Massive performance gaps exist: The best performers serve low-income borrowers at rates three times higher than the worst performers (42.3% vs. 12.7%), proving that effective LMI lending is achievable at scale.
5
High rate of mortgage companies serving communities of color: Across all demographic groups, mortgage companies consistently outperform banks in lending to Black, Hispanic and Asian borrowers.
6
Geographic community investment varies by lender type: Mortgage companies in the Top 50 slightly outperform banks in serving low-income census tracts (21.3% vs. 20.1%) and slightly lag behind them in majority-minority communities (29.5% vs. 31.0%).
Discussion
Why focus on the Top 50 lenders?
The American mortgage market may seem diverse with 4,500 different lenders making home purchase loans in 2024, but the reality is a much more concentrated landscape. Only 50 lenders originated more than half of the 2,941,585 home purchase loans made that year. These top 50 lenders shape who gets to buy a home in America, with the average top 50 lender making 10 times as many loans as the remaining lenders.
This intense concentration means that lending decisions made by executives at a few dozen companies have more impact on American homeownership than the combined choices of thousands of smaller lenders. When a major lender changes its policies, millions of potential homebuyers feel the effects. By looking at the top 50 lenders, we illuminate how they use their overwhelming market power to expand or constrict economic opportunity for all families, whether they’re homeowners or renters.
Why This Lending Concentration Matters
Given that large lenders operate across multiple states, their practices shape lending access across hundreds of communities. A policy change by just one of the top 10 lenders can affect mortgage availability for more families than all the community banks in several states combined.
These institutions face varying levels of regulatory oversight. The 14 banks in the top 50 lenders category must comply with the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) and undergo regular federal examinations, while the 35 mortgage companies face different regulatory requirements. Understanding how different types of lenders serve communities reveals the gaps in our current oversight system.
The top 50 lenders also set industry-wide trends. When major lenders adopt new technologies, pricing strategies or outreach programs, smaller institutions often follow their lead. This makes the practices of large lenders influential far beyond their direct market share.
The Focus on Maximum Impact
By examining the top 50 lenders, we can identify the practices that most significantly influence whether American families can access homeownership. These lenders interact with millions of families annually. When we find disparities in how they serve different communities, we are documenting problems that affect hundreds of thousands of families. When we see improvements, we are tracking progress that can rapidly expand opportunities at a meaningful scale.
The thousands of smaller lenders serve important local roles as well, but their individual impact on national patterns remains limited. The top 50 lenders represent how policy changes and fair lending improvements can have the greatest immediate effect on advancing homeownership access across American communities.
Institution Types and Market Performance
The composition of America’s top mortgage lenders has shifted dramatically over the past five years, with mortgage companies increasing their dominance while banks retreat from home lending. This transformation carries significant implications for borrower access and regulatory oversight, particularly for low- and moderate-income borrowers (LMIB) who depend on consistent credit availability.
The top 50 lenders are not all the same kind of entity. Mortgage companies dominate the list but there are a number of banks and one credit union that made the list. These are very different kinds of companies with different levels of regulatory oversight and different missions. They also often use different loan products to enable homeownership for their customers.
Market Position Changes Since 2020
The mortgage landscape has continued its shift toward mortgage companies since 2020, with these institutions further expanding their market share while traditional banking institutions continue reducing their presence in home lending markets.
This shift represents more than changing market dynamics. It reflects a change in how mortgage lending is regulated and supervised. Mortgage companies operate under different regulatory frameworks than banks with notably less oversight regarding community lending obligations. Among the top 50 lenders, this concentration is even more extreme. Mortgage companies in the top 50 lender group originated over 69% of home purchase loans.
Comprehensive Performance by Institution Type
The performance of different institution types reveals consistent patterns across multiple community investment measures, with mortgage companies generally outperforming banks in lending to marginalized communities despite having fewer regulatory obligations.
Mortgage companies consistently outperform banks across all community investment measures. They serve low- and moderate-income borrowers at higher rates (25.5% vs 22.8%), lend more in low-income census tracts (21.3% vs 20.1%) and demonstrate superior performance in serving borrowers of color across all demographic groups.
Performance Changes Since 2020
All institution types have experienced declines in LMIB lending since 2020, but have improved their LMICT lending performance. That means that wealthier borrowers are seeking homes in lower income neighborhoods.
Banks showed the smallest decline in LMIB lending and the largest improvement in LMICT lending, while credit unions experienced the steepest drop in serving low- and moderate-income borrowers. However, mortgage companies maintained the highest absolute performance levels throughout this period.
Individual Lender Performance
In the table below, all 50 of the top lenders are shown with their respective performance across all of the metrics covered in this report. Click on the column headers to sort and review the top and bottom lender across each metric:
Low- and Moderate-Income Borrower Lending Performance
Low- and moderate-income borrowers face increasing barriers to homeownership among America’s largest lenders. Rising rates coupled with investor-supported home prices and increasing closing costs make lending to LMI borrowers difficult. But, as many lenders in the Top 50 grouping have shown, it is possible to make homeownership happen for LMI families.
Individual lenders within the top 50 show dramatic variation in their commitment to serving low- and moderate-income borrowers. The highest-performing lenders demonstrate that robust LMIB lending remains achievable at scale.
Flat Branch Mortgage serves low- and moderate-income borrowers at a rate of 39.8%, while Citibank serves this population at just 6.7%. This nearly six-fold difference proves that effective LMI lending strategies can work at large scale when institutions prioritize community access. But other factors impact the size of the LMI home buying market. Among the top lenders covered by this report, those that operate in areas with lower housing costs versus family incomes perform better. This results in a spectrum of scores that is more nuanced than “best” versus “worst” and should be used to assess not just the commitment of lenders to LMI home buyers but also to better understand the structural barriers to LMI homeownership.
Conversely, several major institutions show concerning underperformance when it comes to LMIB lending. These patterns suggest that some large lenders may be systematically avoiding lower-income borrowers, potentially limiting homeownership opportunities for hundreds of thousands of families who depend on consistent access to affordable mortgage credit.
Performance Patterns by Institution Size
Larger Top 50 lenders generally show lower LMIB lending rates, suggesting that a lender’s scaling strategy may create incentives to focus on higher-income borrowers who generate larger loan amounts and potentially higher profits.
The mid-sized lenders (20,000-39,999 loans) show the strongest LMIB performance on average, while the largest lenders lag behind smaller institutions. However, the wide ranges within each category indicate that lending volume alone does not determine a lender’s LMIB commitment.
Geographic Concentration of Strong LMIB Lenders
The top-performing LMIB lenders tend to follow distinct geographic patterns, with performance often correlating with their market focus rather than their scale alone. Analysis of their market presence reveals how strategic geographic positioning affects community lending outcomes.
These leading LMIB performers include both true national lenders and regional specialists. Among the top LMIB performers, United Shore Financial Services operates nationally but has a regional concentration in the South and West, while Guaranteed Rate functions as a national lender with a concentration in major metros like Boston, Chicago and New York.
Regional performers, like Flat Branch Mortgage, focus on specific markets (Kansas City, Missouri, St. Louis, Joplin, Missouri, Peoria, Illinois and Tulsa, Oklahoma), demonstrating that effective LMIB lending can succeed through the use of deep regional market knowledge. The strongest LMIB performances often emerge from lenders that align their market focus with demographic growth patterns while targeting economically diverse metro areas with substantially low- to moderate-income populations.
Community and Demographic Lending Performance
This section examines how the top 50 lenders serve both individual borrowers from different racial and ethnic backgrounds and communities defined by certain neighborhood characteristics. The analysis reveals which lenders are expanding homeownership access for communities of color and which may be creating barriers, while also assessing geographic patterns of community investment.
Borrower Demographics Overview
The top 50 lenders collectively served different racial and ethnic groups at varying rates in 2024, with notable gaps in representation compared to their actual population demographics.
The top 50 lenders followed different demographic lending patterns compared to the national market trends. Hispanic borrowers received 14.1% of loans from the top 50 lenders, significantly below their 17.7% share of lending nationally and below their 16.8% adult population share. This suggests that the largest lenders may be under-serving Hispanic communities compared to smaller institutions.
Asian borrowers received 10.3% of top 50 lending services, slightly above their 9.4% national lending share and well above their approximately 7% adult population share. Black borrowers received 8.9% of top 50 lending, matching their national lending rate but remaining below their 11.7% adult population share.
Demographic Lending Performance Patterns
Lending across different demographic groups is a highly nuanced and cyclical issue. Not so long ago Hispanic borrowers suffered the same lack of access that we have always seen among Black borrowers. But, as more Hispanic people in the US transitioned to adulthood and homebuying age, we have seen them surge in numbers across markets and lenders. In this section, we look across several key demographic markers and discuss lender performance. But it is often the case that lenders that rank relatively low in one area have stronger numbers elsewhere relative to the rest of the top lenders.
There are few clear-cut or simple stories to be found in these lender rankings. Some high-profile banks that rank poorly in one category of interest to the economic justice movement are simultaneously delivering strong performance in others. Citibank, for example, made just 4.2% of its loans to Black borrowers– the third-lowest share in our rankings – but made 37.8% of its loans in majority-minority census tracts, the sixth-highest rate among top 50 lenders. Huntington National Bank ranked 36th out of 50 in lending to Black borrowers, but 4th in lending to low- and moderate-income borrowers. Flagstar Bank’s 7.6% lending share to Black borrowers ranked 38th on the list, but it had the 16th-highest LMIB lending rate in our analysis.
As these handful of examples suggest, capital distribution outcomes can vary widely not only from one lender’s portfolio to another’s, but within a given lender’s own mortgage book depending on which facets of the data one focuses upon. There is no single magical explanation for these disparities. The data tell us what happened, but not necessarily why it happened. The factors potentially driving a particular lender’s performance range widely, from institutional decisions about what products to offer and how to market them, to underlying fundamentals of geography, economics or demographics in a given lender’s service area. Lenders are best positioned to identify what is or is not shaping their individual performance and to seek out local partners to ask what changes they might make in order to better serve the communities currently on the losing end of America’s vast racial wealth and homeownership gaps.
These interactive scatterplot representations of the data further illustrate how tightly or loosely the top 50 lenders are grouped around the midpoint of these lists:
Black Borrower Access
Among Black borrowers, performance varies dramatically across the top 50 lenders. NVR Mortgage Finance leads with 24.6% of its loans going to Black borrowers, while Black borrowers represent 3.5% of Provident Funding Associates’ lending portfolio. This seven-fold difference demonstrates that robust Black lending is achievable when lenders operate strategically in diverse markets and develop effective outreach and underwriting approaches.
The strongest performers include both regional specialists and lenders with strategic geographic focuses. NVR Mortgage Finance operates as a regional builder-affiliated lender concentrated in the Southeast markets of Charlotte, North Carolina, Nashville, Tennessee, Philadelphia and Washington, DC. Provident Funding Associates focuses on high-growth Southern metro areas, including Atlanta, Dallas and Houston. These concentration patterns align with demographic trends showing continued Black population growth in Southeast and Southwest regions.
Hispanic Borrower Access
Hispanic lending shows similarly wide performance gaps among the Top 50 lenders. Paramount Residential Mortgage Group has a 37.9% Hispanic lending rate, while Hispanic borrowers only constitute 7.4% of Flat Branch Mortgage’s portfolio. These differences need to be understood in the context of a growing population of Hispanic adults that is expanding into new parts of the country while maintaining large regional concentrations.
The geographic patterns reveal the importance of strategic market positioning. Paramount Residential Mortgage Group concentrates its services in the Miami metropolitan region and the Riverside-San Bernardino metropolitan area of California, both high-Hispanic population markets. Conversely, Flat Branch Mortgage operates as a regional lender concentrated in Kansas City, Missouri, St. Louis, Joplin, Missouri, Peoria, Illinois and Tulsa, Oklahoma, areas with lower Hispanic populations.
Leading Hispanic lenders have become concentrated in the high-growth Southwest, Southeast and Sunbelt markets, reflecting Hispanic population expansion beyond traditional gateway states into new destination areas with more affordable housing costs and expanding economic opportunities. A recent census analysis shows Hispanic Americans contributed to 91% of the US’ total population growth between the 2020-2023 period, making this demographic crucial for lender growth strategies.
Asian Borrower Access
Asian lending patterns show the widest performance range among all tracked demographic groups. Provident Funding Associates has a 38.0% Asian lending rate, while Asian borrowers constitute just 2.2% of Flat Branch Mortgage’s portfolio. This seventeen-fold difference reflects both geographic concentration patterns and varying lender strategies in different markets.
However, the geographic patterns explain much of this variation. Provident Funding Associates operates in Southern metro areas with high-Asian populations, such as Atlanta, Dallas and Houston, while Flat Branch Mortgage concentrates its efforts in Midwest markets (Kansas City, Missouri, St. Louis, Joplin, Missouri and Peoria, Illinois) with smaller Asian populations.
Other strong Asian lending performers include Citibank, whose lending services are based in major coastal metros, including Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Jose, California and New York, with JPMorgan Chase Bank focusing its lending in Chicago and New York. These cities all share a history of having strong Asian communities, though research indicates Asian population growth is expanding into suburban areas and emerging markets across the South and Southwest where technological advancements and professional opportunities drive settlement patterns.
Geographic Community Investment
The geographic distribution of mortgage lending reveals how America’s largest lenders serve different communities in LMICTs and MMCTs. While more lending is happening in LMICTs as buyers seek lower cost housing options, the rate of lending in MMCTs remains relatively flat.
Low- and Moderate-Income Census Tract Lending
Geographic investments in underserved communities show significant variations among the top 50 lenders. Among the measured performers, strong LMICT lenders include DHI Mortgage (concentrated in Dallas and Houston), Lennar Mortgage (focused on Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and Tampa, Florida) and KBHS Home Loans (operating across Austin, Houston, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Riverside, California and San Antonio). These builder-affiliated lenders demonstrate that community investment can align with strategic market positioning in high-growth Sunbelt metros.
The strongest LMICT performers often combine national scale with regional concentration. Guild Mortgage operates nationally with a Western regional focus, while CrossCountry Mortgage functions as a national lender with a New York City metro concentration. These patterns align with current population growth patterns and show continued demographic expansion in growing metropolitan areas. The leading community investment lenders have developed expertise in serving diverse neighborhoods within their concentrated market areas.
Majority-Minority Census Tract Investment
Investment in majority-minority communities varies dramatically among large lenders based on their respective geographic market focus. KBHS Home Loans has a 62.6% lending rate in majority-minority census tracts, operating across high-diversity Sunbelt markets, including Austin, Houston, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Riverside, California and San Antonio. Conversely, these communities constitute only 6.9% of Flat Branch Mortgage’s portfolio with its main concentration being in markets with lower minority populations.
The geographic distribution of leading MMCT lenders reflects their strategic positioning in diverse metropolitan areas. JPMorgan Chase Bank, concentrated in Chicago and New York City, achieved a strong MMCT performance in these diverse major metros. Lennar Mortgage focuses on high-growth Texas and Florida markets (Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and Tampa, Florida) that align with current demographic patterns that show minorities driving population growth in most metropolitan areas. These leading MMCT performers demonstrate that majority-minority communities represent substantial market opportunities when lenders develop appropriate products, outreach strategies and underwriting approaches within their geographic markets.
Conclusion: Institution Type Patterns Across All Measures
Mortgage companies consistently outperform banks in serving borrowers of color and investing in underserved communities, despite banks having explicit Community Reinvestment Act obligations. This pattern holds across borrower-level demographics, borrower income levels and neighborhood characteristics. Aggregate lending statistics show relatively similar performance between mortgage companies and banks in serving low- to moderate-income census tracts (21.3% vs. 20.1%) and majority-minority census tracts (29.5% vs. 31.0%).
These comparable figures result primarily from a small number of high-volume banks that substantially exceed typical lending levels. When examining individual lender performance rather than aggregate totals, most banks rank among the poorest performers in serving both low- to moderate-income and majority-minority communities, revealing that regulatory requirements alone do not guarantee equitable lending outcomes.
The consistent superior performance of mortgage companies across all community investment measures raises important questions about the effectiveness of current regulatory frameworks and whether Community Reinvestment Act obligations are driving meaningful improvements in community access to credit among the nation’s largest lenders.
Methods
This analysis utilized 2024 Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) data combined with demographic information from the U.S. Census Bureau and each lender’s geographic concentration analyses.
Primary Data Sources:
- Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) Loan Application Register data for all U.S. financial institutions
- U.S. Census Bureau demographic and geographic data
- Lender institution type classifications
- Geographic concentration analyses based on Core Based Statistical Area (CBSA) lending patterns
Lender geographic concentrations were determined by analyzing lending patterns across metropolitan areas, with the market concentrations being defined according to where lenders achieved a statistically significant, above-average market share. The analysis utilized the Brooking Institute’s demographic research and population projection studies to contextualize lending patterns within broader demographic trends.
Analysis Scope:
- Focus on home purchase loans only (owner-occupied, site-built, 1-4 unit forward loans)
- Top 50 lenders ranked by their total loan volume in 2024
- Demographic analysis excluding loans with missing race/ethnicity data
- Geographic analysis based on borrower residence location
Key Definitions:
- Low- and Moderate-Income Borrower (LMIB): Individual borrower with income at or below 80% of the area median family income
- Low- and Moderate-Income Census Tract (LMICT): Geographic area where the median family income is at or below 80% of the area median family income
- Majority-Minority Census Tract (MMCT): Census tract where racial/ethnic minorities comprise more than 50% of residents
- Market Concentration: Geographic areas where lenders achieve above-average market share, indicating a strategic focus or operational concentration
Resources
For the complete series, including videos, interactive visualizations and localized market analysis, visit our 2025 Mortgage Market series homepage. NCRC members can request customized community data requests as well. Those interested in membership benefits should contact Ralph Cyrus (Membership Engagement Specialist) at rcyrus@ncrc.org.
Mortgage Market Series
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