Investment Property Mortgage Rates 2026: What 486,530 Investor Loans Paid vs Homeowners (HMDA Data)

Investment property mortgage rates are four prices, not one

Search for investment property mortgage rates and you get lender pages with a “starting at” number and guides that quote a range. The loan-level federal record lets you do something they cannot: look at every originated loan. Of the 486,530 investor loans in 2025, 79% (384,257) were made primarily for a business or commercial purpose, 102,257 for a personal one and 16 reported the field as exempt, and the groups are priced very differently. HMDA has no field named DSCR, bridge or fix-and-flip, so we sorted the loans with fields that exist, and we say how.

• 30-year consumer-purpose. Business-purpose field = 2 (“Not primarily for a business or commercial purpose”) and a term of exactly 360 months. This is the closest thing to a standard investor mortgage; the largest lenders in this group are (in order) ROCKET MORTGAGE; The Loan Store, Inc; Lennar Mortgage, LLC, all of which also lend to owner-occupants.
• DSCR-type. Business purpose, the debt-to-income field “NA” (the lender did not use the borrower's income ratio in the credit decision) and a term of 360 months or more. HMDA cannot see a debt service coverage ratio, so this is our proxy. Our DSCR loan guide and DSCR rate page explain the product; the same definition is used on our state DSCR pages.
• Business purpose, 30 years or more, DTI reported. Same as above but the lender reported a debt-to-income ratio, so it looked at the borrower's income. The largest lenders in this group are (in order) United Wholesale Mortgage; PENNYMAC LOAN SERVICES LLC; CROSSCOUNTRY MORTGAGE, LLC.
• Short-term. Business purpose, no DTI, a term of 36 months or less: bridge, fix-and-flip and hard money. Our hard money loan rates page covers this product alone, lender by lender; here it is one line.

All groups are originated (action taken = 1), conventional, first lien, closed-end, not reverse mortgages, one to four units, and occupancy type 3, “Investment property”. Owner-occupied loans are occupancy type 1 under the same filters. Loans with a business purpose are in the file only if they are home purchases, home improvements or refinances (12 CFR 1003.3(c)(10)).

Median note rate by investment-property loan type, 2025 and 2024

The mix matters as much as the prices. The DSCR-type share of investor loans rose from 23.4% in 2024 to 31.3% in 2025, and short-term loans were 14%. The 30-year consumer-purpose loan, the one most homeowners know, was 18.7% of the investor market. A single "average investor rate" blends products that sit 0.5 to 3 points apart.

The investor premium: 0.499 points over a homeowner on the same loan

The question behind most searches is “how much more do I pay because it is a rental?” The cleanest answer compares loans that are alike except for occupancy: 30-year, first lien, conventional, made for a personal purpose. In 2025 the median investor note rate on that loan was 6.999% (90,859 loans) and the median owner-occupant rate 6.5% (2,259,931 loans). The gap was 0.499 points, and in 2024 it was 0.5 (7.125% against 6.625%). Both medians fell by about the same amount, 0.126 and 0.125 points, so the premium did not narrow when rates came down.

You may wonder about timing: an investor and a homeowner who borrowed in different months in the same year faced different markets. The public HMDA file carries only the calendar year (its date field is described as “The calendar year the data submission covers”), not the month, so we cannot match by month. The file does carry a rate spread: the loan's APR minus the average prime offer rate “as of the date the interest rate is set”, which removes most of the timing effect. On that measure the investor median was 0.599 points and the owner-occupant median 0.14, a premium of 0.459 points (2024: 0.507), consistent with the note-rate gap. The rate spread is reported on 53,805 of the 90,859 investor 30-year loans but on only 14,816 of 152,049 DSCR-type loans and 58 of 68,319 short-term loans, so it cannot be used for the business-purpose products.

The investor premium over an owner-occupied borrower, by like-for-like comparison

Three readings of the table. First, the 0.75-point gap between all investor loans and all owner-occupied loans (7.25% against 6.5%) overstates the premium for a conventional borrower, because the investor pool includes DSCR-type and short-term loans that owner-occupied borrowers do not use. Second, the premium is similar for purchases (+0.49 points) and refinances (+0.499). Third, the answer to “how much does a DSCR loan cost over a conventional loan” depends on the comparator: +0.875 points over an owner-occupied 30-year loan, but +0.376 over the investor's own conventional alternative. Our DSCR versus conventional page compares DSCR pricing with the owner-occupied headline rate; the first number is that comparison, the second is the like-for-like one for someone who qualifies for either.

On the median investor 30-year loan of $255,000, the 0.499-point premium is about $85 a month, $1,015 a year in principal and interest (our arithmetic, a 6.999% loan against a 6.5% loan, 30-year fixed).

The premium grows with leverage, and 30-year investor loans are not cheap at any size

The premium is not one number. Within 30-year consumer-purpose loans, it rises with the combined loan-to-value ratio (CLTV, “the ratio of the total amount of debt secured by the property to the value of the property relied on in making the credit decision”; the nationwide download names the column loan_to_value_ratio).

30-year consumer-purpose loans by combined loan-to-value band, 2025

At 60% or lower the investor pays +0.375 points, at 75% to 80% +0.785 and above 80% +0.875 (our arithmetic). The comparison groups are not equally leveraged: owner-occupied loans above 80% are common (35.6% of the owner-occupied file), while investor loans above 80% are rare (3.6% of investor loans; 2,284 of the 30-year consumer-purpose loans), so the top band rests on few investor loans. The investor median CLTV was 73.64% against 80% for owner-occupied loans; three out of four investor loans sat at or below 75%. A bigger down payment trims the premium but does not remove it.

By loan size: where the premium is smallest and where it is largest

Median note rate by loan size, 2025

Small loans cost more in the consumer-purpose and DSCR-type products: the investor 30-year median is 7.3% under $100,000 and 6.99% at $300,000 to $499,999. The 30-year premium is +0.56 points for loans under $100,000 and +0.865 points above $1,000,000, where owner-occupied loans are priced lowest (6.125%). Short-term loans do not follow the size curve: the median is between 9.75% and 10.2% for every band from $100,000 up, and lower, 8.5%, under $100,000, where banks make a larger share of the loans (the hard money page shows the bank effect).

Investment property mortgage rates by state: the ten biggest markets

The ten states with the most investor loans made 57.0% of all of them in 2025 (our arithmetic). The 30-year premium over an owner-occupied borrower ran from Texas (+0.275 points) to Pennsylvania (+0.625). The all-investor median ran from 7.1% (North Carolina) to 7.5% (Ohio), and the last columns show why a state median needs its product mix: DSCR-type loans were 46.5% of Florida's investor loans and 23.3% of North Carolina's.

The ten largest states for investment-property loans, 2025

Read the state table with the product columns, not the all-loans column. In North Carolina, the lowest all-loan median of the ten (7.1%), 5,027 of 20,577 investor loans were 30-year consumer-purpose loans at 6.875%, while its DSCR-type median was 7.25%. Our state pages for Texas and Florida go county by county on DSCR-type loans; their investor-loan totals (Texas 51,389, Florida 51,719) are larger than ours (44,576 and 47,091), which we read as a filter difference, while their DSCR-type counts equal ours.

Who lends: the 20 largest investor lenders and what their loans cost

The 20 largest lenders made 37.3% of all 2025 investor loans. They are a mix of wholesale mortgage companies that fund broker loans, DSCR specialists, short-term lenders such as Kiavi, and a few banks. Lender names are as filed with HMDA; the loan counts include every product in our groups.

The 20 largest investment-property lenders by loan count, 2025

The medians reflect what each lender sells. United Wholesale Mortgage made 29,649 loans, all business-purpose loans (mostly DSCR-type and long-term loans with a reported DTI), at 7.375%. KIAVI FUNDING, INC. made 25,518, mostly short-term, at 9.95%. Lenders whose loans are 30-year consumer-purpose, such as ROCKET MORTGAGE, sit near the owner-occupied range. A lender's headline median therefore says little about its price for your loan; compare by product.

Rate spread, LTV and closing costs for the same 20 lenders, 2025

Rate spread and total loan costs appear only for lenders whose investor loans include consumer-purpose loans covered by Regulation Z; Regulation C requires total loan costs “For covered loans subject to Regulation Z, 12 CFR 1026.43(c)”, so business-purpose lenders show “not reported”. Where the combined LTV is shown, most lenders sit at 70% to 75%; a lender is shown as n/a when fewer than 80% of its loans carry a usable ratio (ratios reported in another form, such as a fraction, are not counted).

The sharper test of a premium is the same lender pricing both sides. Among lenders with at least 1,000 investor and 1,000 owner-occupied 30-year consumer-purpose loans in 2025, 9 of 9 charged investors a higher median rate than homeowners, by between +0.125 points (NEXBANK) and +0.75 points (CMG MORTGAGE INC).

Lenders with at least 1,000 investor and 1,000 owner-occupied 30-year loans, 2025, sorted by premium

HMDA shows the outcome, not the reason for each lender's gap. The practical use is to ask a lender that serves both borrowers what its owner-occupied rate is today and how much it adds for the rental.

Closing costs: what the investor premium looks like in dollars

Note rates are half the price. Regulation C has lenders report total loan costs from the closing disclosure, but only “For covered loans subject to Regulation Z, 12 CFR 1026.43(c)”, and the HMDA filing guide's validity edits say: “If Business or Commercial Purpose equals 1, then Total Loan Costs must be NA or Exempt.” The same edit exists for origination charges and discount points. That is why the table below covers only consumer-purpose loans: the 30-year group.

Closing costs reported in HMDA for 30-year consumer-purpose loans

On a smaller loan ($255,000 against $345,000), investors paid slightly higher median total loan costs, $5,738 against $5,513, which is 2.44% of the loan against 1.72% (median of each loan's ratio, our arithmetic). Origination charges were $2,600 against $1,990. Median discount points among loans that report them were $2,412 for investors and $2,616 for owner-occupants, and 50,556 of 90,859 investor loans report a points payment (55.6%) against 49.2% of owner-occupied loans. The investor premium therefore shows up in both the rate and the closing statement. Of the 384,257 business-purpose investor loans, 0 report total loan costs, 0 report origination charges and 0 report discount points. If you borrow on a business-purpose loan, the public record cannot tell you what the points were.

2025 against 2024: lower rates, more DSCR loans, same premium

The all-investor median fell from 7.5% to 7.25% (-0.25 points) while owner-occupied loans fell from 6.625% to 6.5% (-0.125). Investor lending grew 15.3% (from 422,051 to 486,530 loans, $135.2 billion to $173.8 billion) against 7.7% for owner-occupied loans, so investors were a larger slice of first-lien lending: 15.4% of loans in these two groups, against 14.5% in 2024 (our arithmetic). By product, 30-year consumer-purpose rates fell 0.126 points, DSCR-type 0.25, business-purpose 30-year with DTI 0.376 and short-term 0.76.

Share of loans by note-rate band

The shift is concentrated in the 8% and 9% bands. In 2024, 32.8% of DSCR-type loans carried a rate of 8% or more; in 2025 it was 17.1%. For 30-year consumer-purpose investor loans the share at 8% or above fell from 10.1% to 4.6%, and the share under 7% rose from 38.8% to 50.0%. Loans made in 2026 will appear in the federal file in 2027, so this page describes where the market was in 2025, not today's quotes.

What this data cannot tell you

• No month. The public file reports the calendar year only. The rate spread corrects for timing on the 30-year consumer-purpose loans; few business-purpose loans report one.
• Note rate, not APR, and no credit score. HMDA reports the interest rate; the rate-versus-points trade is invisible on business-purpose loans. Credit score is not in the public file, so we cannot separate a lender's investors from its homeowners by credit.
• Coverage. A closed-end loan is excluded if the lender originated “fewer than 25 closed-end mortgage loans in either of the two preceding calendar years” (12 CFR 1003.3(c)(11)), so small local lenders are missing. Business-purpose loans are excluded unless they are purchases, improvements or refinances. Five-unit and larger properties are multifamily dwellings (12 CFR 1003.2(n)) and are outside our one-to-four-unit filter.
• Our groups are proxies. The DSCR-type group is defined by fields the lender reports, so it can include business-purpose loans that are not DSCR loans, and exclude DSCR loans whose lender reported a DTI. A lender that enters a term incorrectly lands in the wrong group.
• Medians, not quotes. A median is what borrowers got in 2025, not what you will be offered. Your credit score, LTV, reserves, property, state and the lender decide that.

What a borrower can do with this

1. Find your product first. If you can document income and the property fits a conventional program, the investor 30-year median was 6.999% with a middle half of 6.625% to 7.49%. If you are using a DSCR-type loan, the median was 7.375% (middle half 6.875% to 7.75%). Short-term loans were 9.99% (middle half 8.8588% to 10.95%); see the hard money page.
2. Place your quote. An investor 30-year consumer-purpose rate at or below 6.625% was in the cheapest quarter of 2025 loans and one at or above 7.49% in the costliest quarter. The median was 0.499 points over what owner-occupants got.
3. Compare DSCR with the right alternative. The DSCR-type median was +0.376 points over the investor conventional median. If you qualify for both, that is the price of the DSCR features; see DSCR loan versus conventional mortgage for the eligibility rules and the best DSCR lenders page.
4. Put more down when you can. The 30-year premium was +0.375 points at 60% LTV or lower and +0.785 at 75% to 80%; leverage costs more for an investor than for a homeowner.
5. Ask for the closing costs in writing. Consumer-purpose investor loans paid a higher share in costs (2.44% against 1.72% at the median). On business-purpose loans the public record has no such figure.
6. Ask a lender that serves both sides. Among the largest lenders, the same lender's investor median was above its owner-occupied median in 9 of 9 cases; ask what it adds for a rental.

Kiavi pays us a referral fee when a loan closes through its button in the box below. The HMDA figures above are the same either way. Kiavi's 2025 median is in the lender table so you can compare it; its loans are mostly short-term. Visio Lending makes 30-year rental loans, the DSCR-type product; Lima One Capital is in the box as well.

FAQ

Loan-level data: FFIEC/CFPB HMDA Data Browser, nationwide originated conventional loans for 2024 and 2025, downloaded October 7, 2026 (the request URL is in the data file; the browser's API has no occupancy filter, so occupancy 1 and 3 and first-lien loans were selected from the file by our script dl.py, with an.py computing every statistic; the investment-property rows and the exemplar records are in the data folder); lender names and agency codes from the FFIEC filer lists and public institutions API, read October 7, 2026; field definitions from the FFIEC public LAR data fields; coverage and reporting rules from 12 CFR 1003.2, 1003.3 and 1003.4 (eCFR, Regulation C). Percentiles, medians, shares, premiums and payment figures are our arithmetic. This is analysis of public documents, not investment, legal or tax advice, and not a loan offer.