We built RatePerch because mortgage pricing is hard to compare.
Many mortgage comparison sites make money by sending borrower details to lenders. RatePerch does not sell contributor contact information. We independently track public lender rate sheets and provide a place for borrowers to contribute the offers they received, with sources, limitations, and methodology disclosed. The rest of this page explains how that works and where the data is still incomplete.
What we're trying to fix
Mortgage pricing is difficult to compare. Published rates often depend on credit, down payment, points, occupancy, and other assumptions that are easy to miss. Borrowers can receive materially different quotes without a simple way to tell whether an offer is competitive for their situation. RatePerch exists to make those comparisons easier and the assumptions more visible.
RatePerch approaches that problem from the borrower's side. Today, the dependable baseline is our independently collected set of public lender rate sheets. Borrower- contributed offers add a second layer as the dataset grows. We show the source type, assumptions, sample size, and verification status so visitors can judge each number appropriately.
How the data works
Collection
Every offer in our public dataset is submitted by a real borrower through our submission form. Submissions are anonymous by default — names and emails are never displayed publicly. Submitters can optionally upload their Loan Estimate (the standardized document every lender must provide within 3 business days of application), which we OCR and use to stamp the submission as verified.
Validation
Every submission runs through automated fraud screening: implausible rates are rejected, APR-below-rate is rejected, statistical outliers against the same credit-and-loan-type segment are flagged for human review. Suspicious submissions land in a moderation queue that we review by hand. We'd rather lose a real submission to over-zealous filtering than publish a fake one.
Aggregation
Headline numbers (medians, percentile bands) are computed from approved, non-deleted submissions in the last 60 days. We don't adjust for points, lender credits, or special promotions because those distort the picture for borrowers comparing standard offers. We disclose sample sizes everywhere a number appears.
Credit union eligibility
We import the complete NCUA list of federally insured credit unions (4,000+) and classify each by membership type using public NCUA Call Report data. State-residency CUs appear on state pages where eligible; SEG-restricted CUs are hidden unless a user submits a community correction (which we then verify before publishing).
What we don't do
These commitments define how RatePerch protects borrower trust as the project grows.
- ✕We don't sell your contact information to lenders.No matter how much they offer. It's a common revenue model in the rate-comparison category; we've declined it on principle.
- ✕We don't take affiliate fees that influence what appears.Lender rankings, credit-union ordering, and rate calculations are computed from data alone. Any future commercial relationship will be labeled and will not alter data-driven rankings.
- ✕We don't hide our methodology. Every number on this site has documented sources and a sample size. If you want to verify, you can.
- ✕We don't practice as mortgage lenders, brokers, or financial advisors.RatePerch is informational. We provide data; you make your own decisions. Always consult a licensed professional for your specific situation.
Where the data comes from
We use four primary sources, all public or borrower-contributed. Click through to verify.
- Borrower-submitted offers
- Crowd-sourced from RatePerch users via our submission form. Verified subset includes Loan Estimate documentation.
- Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey (PMMS)
- The official weekly U.S. average mortgage rate, published every Thursday. We pull it via the Federal Reserve Economic Data API and display it alongside our borrower medians for context.
- NCUA Credit Union directory
- All 4,000+ federally insured credit unions, sourced from the NCUA Call Report dataset (quarterly public records). Eligibility classification uses the NCUA-published field-of-membership codes.
- Credit union posted rates
- Collected weekly from each credit union's public rate sheet using automated extraction or manual review, depending on how the source is published. Points and APR are shown when available; posted rates remain subject to the lender's stated assumptions.
Who runs this
I started RatePerch after going through the mortgage process myself and realizing it's nearly impossible to know whether the rate you're being quoted is fair. I'm not a loan officer or a mortgage industry insider — I'm a regular borrower who got tired of getting wildly different quotes from credit unions, banks, and online lenders with no way to compare them apples-to-apples. RatePerch is the tool I wished existed when I was shopping. Every methodology decision on this site is published, every data source is cited, and I cover what I'm learning week-to-week on the @RatePerch YouTube channel.
Reach out: hello@rateperch.com · YouTube
How we make money
RatePerch is currently an independent, pre-revenue project. Potential future revenue models are still under evaluation and will not be activated until the legal and compliance implications are reviewed. No loan-officer bidding or paid placement marketplace is currently active.
We don't take affiliate fees from lenders. We don't take per-close referral fees. We don't accept paid placements that influence any ranking on the site. The full rules are documented in our disclaimer and on our methodology page.
Contact
We aim to respond within 2 business days. Found an error in our data? Tell us — we read every correction email and update within 24 hours when warranted.