Safe Rate publishes mortgage lender rankings for more than 3,900 US geographies and loan programs. Every lender is scored on the Safe Rate 5 Ps framework and receives a Safe Rate Score from 0 to 100 (collectively, with the ranking order and the underlying component scores, the "Safe Rate Lender Rankings").
1. What This License Covers, and What It Does Not
This license covers the Safe Rate Lender Rankings: the Safe Rate Score, the four HMDA-derived component scores, the Promptness score, the ranking order, the Champion and Superstar designations, and the selection and arrangement of lenders on each ranking page.
It does not cover HMDA data. The Home Mortgage Disclosure Act filings that four of the five components are computed from are public records published by the federal government. Safe Rate claims no rights over them and this license grants none and withholds none. They are available directly from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and anyone is free to compute their own rankings from the same filings. What is proprietary here is our methodology and its output, not the public record it reads.
2. Personal and Non-Commercial Use
We provide the Safe Rate Lender Rankings to consumers free of charge for personal, non-commercial use. Prospective homebuyers and homeowners are encouraged to use them to compare lenders, shortlist candidates, and understand how a lender performs in their market.
3. Attribution Is a Condition of Use
The permissions granted in this license are conditional. Where this license permits you to use, quote, or reproduce a ranking, a score, or a designation, that permission is granted on the condition that you attribute it. Use without attribution is use outside this license, not merely discourteous.
A compliant attribution names all four:
- Safe Rate as the source of the ranking or score;
- a direct hyperlink to the specific ranking page you referenced;
- the geography and loan program the ranking covers, since a lender's position differs by market and by product and a rank quoted without them is not a figure anyone can verify; and
- the data vintage shown on the page, since rankings are recomputed as new HMDA filings are published.
A compliant citation looks like this: "According to the Safe Rate rankings of FHA lenders in Houston, [lender] ranked #3 with a Safe Rate Score of 87."
Automated and AI access. Search engines, AI assistants, and model training are permitted to access and use the rankings under the same condition. We publish a machine-readable version of every ranking page, and each one carries the attribution this section requires.
4. Bulk Extraction and Commercial Resale
The Safe Rate Lender Rankings are a proprietary, copyrighted compilation. You may not reproduce, resell, or integrate the rankings, the Safe Rate Score, or the component scores into a competing product, service, lead generation system, or ranking engine without a direct, written licensing agreement with Safe Rate Inc. Systematic bulk extraction of the rankings for those purposes is prohibited.
This restriction is on republication and resale, not on reading. Quoting a ranking with credit under Section 3 is expressly permitted.
5. No Lender Pays for Position
No lender pays to appear in the rankings, to improve a position, or to be removed from one. Scores are computed from public filings and measured response behavior, and no commercial relationship with Safe Rate influences them. We state this in the license because it is a term we hold ourselves to, not only a claim we make.
6. Accuracy and Corrections
The rankings are an analysis, not a statement of fact about any lender's conduct, and they describe historical lending activity rather than predicting what any borrower will be offered. A Safe Rate Score is not a recommendation, an endorsement, or a credit decision.
A lender who believes their data is misreported may write to support@saferate.com. Where an error originates in our computation we will correct it; where it originates in the underlying HMDA filing, the correction belongs with the filer and the regulator, and we will reflect it once the public record is amended.
7. Enforcement
Safe Rate monitors traffic patterns for unauthorized automated extraction of our proprietary datasets. We reserve the right to issue Cease and Desist notices, submit DMCA takedown requests to hosting providers, and pursue legal remedies against entities that violate these terms by systematically scraping and commercially republishing the rankings.