According to JD Power, mortgage lenders are the ones borrowers are most satisfied with

Home lenders that guide borrowers through the mortgage process receive the highest ratings, according to a new study. However, overall customer satisfaction has declined over the past year, which may be due in part to stubbornly high mortgage interest rates.

JD Power has released a new list of mortgage lenders ranked by customer satisfaction. The 2024 Mortgage Origination Satisfaction Study saw a shakeup of top lenders, with the highest-rated lender pair of 2023, Fairway Independent Mortgage Corporation and Rocket Mortgage, falling out of the top five.

Prosperity Home Mortgage rose from fourth place to the top spot in the new study.

Bruce Gehrke, senior director of wealth and lending intelligence at JD Power, said homebuyers are facing higher costs and unforgiving interest rates. Mortgage lenders who work to understand borrowers’ challenges achieve higher satisfaction scores.

“We consistently find that lenders who play an active advisory role in helping their customers navigate the current market achieve significantly higher customer satisfaction, loyalty and interest scores than those who treat mortgage lending as a transactional process,” Gehrke said in a statement Publication.

On a 1,000-point scale, rated lenders scored an average of 727 this year, down three points from 2023. JD Power said lower staffing may have contributed to a decline in customer service.

Read more: The best mortgage lenders currently

The study highlights areas where consumers are most disappointed. JD Power said that in the 2024 analysis, the factors with the largest year-over-year declines in customer satisfaction were:

When a representative is included in the loan application process, overall satisfaction increases by 40 points, the study says.

The lenders that ranked in the top five in the JD Power survey were:

1. Prosperity Home Mortgage with a score of 772

2. Mortgage of movement, 761

3. Bank of America, 760

4. Citi Mortgage, 759

5. AmeriSave Mortgage, 758

Two highly rated lenders that did not meet the criteria for inclusion in the study were Veterans United (793) and Navy Federal Credit Union (748). A JD Power PR representative told Yahoo Finance via email that the two brands were excluded because they only serve military members and their families and “both business models are virtually inaccessible to the general public.”

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