Second Home Mortgage Rates 2026: 106,251 Loans in Federal Data

What counts as a second home, and why it is its own rate class

Mortgage pricing sorts every loan by occupancy, and a second home is the middle category: more risk than the house you live in, less than a rental. Fannie Mae's Selling Guide (B2-1.1-01) says a second home “must be occupied by the borrower for some portion of the year”, “is restricted to one-unit dwellings” and “must not be rental property or a timeshare arrangement”. The borrower must have “exclusive control over the property”, and it “cannot be subject to any agreements that give a management firm control over the occupancy of the property”. If the lender identifies rental income, the loan can still be delivered as a second home “as long as the income is not used for qualifying purposes”.

Federal HMDA data use the same three buckets: occupancy type 1 is a principal residence, 2 a second residence and 3 an investment property. Most pages that rank for this question quote a survey average and a rule of thumb (a quarter to three-quarters of a point above a primary home). The loan-level file shows what lenders actually charged on 106,251 second-home loans, and where the extra cost is and is not.

Rules for the three occupancy types (Fannie Mae Eligibility Matrix of August 5, 2026; Freddie Mac Guide table read October 12, 2026)

Both agencies cap a second home below a primary home on loan-to-value (90% against 95% to 97%) and above a one-unit rental (85%). Our pages on conventional loans for investment property and down payments on investment property cover the third bucket.

What lenders charged in 2025: second home, primary home, rental

We streamed the nationwide HMDA files for 2024 and 2025 from the FFIEC Data Browser (conventional loans, originated and denied) and kept first-lien loans on one to four units that are closed-end and not reverse mortgages, the same filters as our investment-property rate page, whose 2025 counts our numbers reproduce (2,681,488 principal-residence loans). A second-home loan is occupancy type 2.

Conventional first-lien loans originated in 2025 by occupancy (HMDA)

The all-loan medians mix purposes and terms, so compare the cleaner cut: 30-year loans made for a personal purpose (business purpose flagged “not primarily for a business or commercial purpose”). On that cut the second home sat 0.375 points above a primary home in 2025 and 0.375 in 2024; the rental premium was 0.499.

30-year, personal-purpose, first-lien conventional loans by occupancy, 2025

The rate spread is the loan's APR minus the average prime offer rate; the second-home median was 0.379 points against 0.14 for a primary home (our arithmetic from the HMDA field). On 30-year purchase loans the median total loan costs were $6,105 for a second home and $5,606 for a primary home, which partly reflects the larger loan.

Today's reference: the Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey averaged 7.32% for the week of October 22, 2026, down from 7.40% the week before, against a mean of 6.595% across the 53 weekly readings of 2025 (our arithmetic). The 2025 second-home median sat 0.280 points above that mean, so the same loan would price near 7.60% today (an estimate from our arithmetic, not a quote).

Where the premium is: loans the agencies buy

The headline premium hides a split. HMDA records who bought each loan in the year it was made. Loans sold to Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac are priced with their published price adjustments; loans not sold in the year are those a lender keeps on its books or sells later.

30-year personal-purpose loans by who bought them, 2025 (HMDA purchaser type)

Second-home loans went to the agencies less often (24.5% against 48%) and stayed unsold more often (39.6% against 24.1%). Among the agency loans the premium is 0.5 points, consistent with Fannie Mae's published adjustment: its Loan-Level Price Adjustment Matrix of September 30, 2026 charges a second home 2.125% of the loan at 70.01% to 75% loan-to-value and 3.375% at 75.01% to 80%, on top of the credit-score adjustment. Fannie Mae loans had a median of 7.125% (11.4% of the group) and Freddie Mac loans 7% (13.1%). Among loans not sold, the medians were equal at 6.25%: a lender holding the loan sets its own price and often does not add the occupancy surcharge.

Two cautions. The unsold group is not a random sample (portfolio lenders pick their borrowers, and some of these loans were sold after the year ended), and a median is not the price any one borrower gets. But it explains why the gap is 0.375 points in the whole file and 0.5 in the agency channel.

Loan size and lender type: jumbo second homes were cheap

Second-home borrowers borrow more: the median 30-year second-home loan was $375,000 against $345,000, and 15.6% of 30-year second-home loans were nonconforming (above the agency loan limit), against 5.6% of primary-home loans.

Median note rate by loan amount, 30-year personal-purpose loans, 2025

The relationship is reversed from what the survey averages suggest: the larger the second-home loan, the lower the rate. The mechanism is the lender. We cannot see lender type in HMDA, so we classify by name (a lender whose name contains BANK, CREDIT UNION, BANCORP, SAVINGS, FEDERAL, N.A, TRUST, FCU, FSB or COMMUNITY is “bank-like”, our rule).

30-year personal-purpose loans by loan size class and lender type, 2025

Bank-like lenders' jumbo second-home loans (10,641 loans) had the same median as their jumbo primary-home loans, 5.875%, while nonbank lenders' jumbo second-home loans (3,681) were at 6.875%. On conforming loans the bank-like second-home median was 6.625% (33,122 loans) against 7% for other lenders (44,204). If you are a borrower with a large loan, a relationship bank is where the data show second homes priced like primary homes. If you will borrow under the conforming limit and the lender will sell to the agencies, expect the surcharge.

Down payment: 90% is the ceiling, 80% is the shelf

Fannie Mae's Eligibility Matrix (August 5, 2026) lets a second-home purchase go to 90% loan-to-value on one unit (10% down) and a cash-out refinance to 75%; Freddie Mac's table shows the same two figures. About one borrower in nine uses the full 90%. HMDA's loan-to-value field is the combined ratio (the CSV column is named loan_to_value_ratio).

Combined loan-to-value on personal-purpose purchase loans, 2025 (share of loans with a ratio)

The median second-home purchase was at 75% CLTV (25% down), the 90th percentile at 90%; 26.7% of loans were at exactly 80% and 11.2% at exactly 90%, the agency maximum. A primary-home buyer's median was 80% and a rental buyer's 75%.

What the extra down payment bought, on second-home purchases for a personal purpose (rate for 30-year loans, denial rate for all terms):

Borrowing above 80% instead of at or below it moved the median rate by 0.625 points and raised the denial rate. In Fannie Mae's price grid the adjustment for a second home is 3.375% of the loan at 75.01% to 80% and 4.125% at 80.01% to 90%.

Fannie Mae price adjustment for a second home, purchase loans (LLPA Matrix of September 30, 2026), on a $355,000 loan (our arithmetic)

$355,000 is the median 30-year second-home purchase loan ($355,000 in HMDA). A lender can pass this adjustment on as a higher rate or as an upfront cost; HMDA does not show which. The same matrix lists the investment-property adjustment at identical percentages in these columns.

What the premium costs (our arithmetic). On a $355,000 30-year loan, the 2025 median second-home rate of 6.875% gives a payment of $2,332.10 a month for principal and interest, against $2,243.84 at the primary-home median of 6.5%: $88.26 a month more. On the agency channel (7.125% against 6.625%) the gap is $118.60 a month, or $42,695 over 360 payments. At the 6.25% median of loans a lender kept, for either occupancy, the payment is $2,185.80.

Denials: second homes are approved more often, for a reason

Across 124,478 decided second-home applications (originated plus denied) in 2025, 14.6% were denied, against 18.6% for primary homes and 19.2% for investment properties. For home purchases the figures were 11%, 16% and 13.9%; for refinances 26% against 22.6%. Second-home applicants usually already own a home, and the group has a far lower share of low-down-payment borrowers than the primary-home pool (29.7% of primary-home purchases were above 90% CLTV against 1.1% for second homes). The file shows who applies, not that the rules are looser.

Principal reason for denial (first reason listed), 2025

Second-home denials lean on the property (collateral 24.2% against 12%); HMDA does not say why, but Fannie Mae requires a second home to be “suitable for year-round occupancy”. Credit history is cited far less often (11.5% against 29.4%).

State by state: where second homes are financed

The twelve states with the most second-home loans in 2025, and four more vacation markets. Rates are 30-year personal-purpose medians; the primary-home column uses the same filter in the same state.

Second-home loans by state, 2025

Florida alone had 15,295 loans, 6.5% of all its loans in the three occupancy groups. Maine had the largest second-home share of any state in the table, 11.6%. New York and New Jersey had second-home medians at or below the primary-home median, and California was only 0.126 points above, in markets where large bank loans dominate (median second-home loans of $475,000, $605,000 and $605,000). In Florida, Arizona, South Carolina and Georgia the second-home median was roughly 0.3 to 0.4 points above the primary-home median.

The 15 largest lenders

2,095 lenders made at least one second-home loan in 2025; only 19 made 1,000 or more, and the top 15 made 31.2% of the total.

The 15 lenders with the most second-home originations in 2025 (conventional, first lien)

The spread across the table is wider than the second-home premium. Bank of America (5.75%) and Morgan Stanley Private Bank (5.85%, with 17.4% of its loans on second homes) made large loans at medians more than a point below the wholesale lenders, whose medians were close to 7%. Medians cover different loan sizes, terms and mixes of purchase and refinance; use the table to decide whom to ask for a quote, not as a rate sheet.

When the second home becomes an investment property

The line between a second home and a rental is drawn twice, by the lender and by the tax code. The lender's line is Fannie Mae's: no rental property, no management firm controlling occupancy. The tax line is section 280A(d)(1) of the Internal Revenue Code, which treats a dwelling as a residence if you use it personally “for a number of days which exceeds the greater of” 14 days or 10 percent of the days it is rented at a fair rental. Only 0.7% of the second-home loans in the HMDA file were reported as business-purpose, so almost none were financed as rentals. If you plan to rent the home out most of the year, you are shopping for an investment-property loan: see DSCR loans against conventional mortgages and short-term rental loans, where the investment-property median for a 30-year personal-purpose loan was 6.999% in 2025. The tax side of a second home (the $750,000 limit and whether the interest is deductible) is on our mortgage interest deduction page, and the exit tax if you sell is covered by 1031 exchanges of vacation homes.

What HMDA can and cannot tell you

• Note rates for loans made in 2025, not quotes. HMDA has no month, no credit score and (for most loans) no points, so a borrower with a 780 score is in the same median as one with a 700.
• Conventional, closed-end first-lien loans only. Government-insured loans, home-equity lines and second liens are not in these numbers.
• Medians are not prices. The file does not show whether the house was later rented.
• Lender type is our name rule and the purchaser field shows only the year of origination.
• 81.8% of second-home originations were purchases and 13.7% refinances (primary homes 71.7% purchases); refinance medians are in the data file.
• The rule figures are from the Fannie Mae Eligibility Matrix dated August 5, 2026, the Loan-Level Price Adjustment Matrix dated September 30, 2026 and the Freddie Mac table we read on October 12, 2026; agencies revise them, so check the current versions before you commit.

What a reader can do with this

• Ask for the right quote. Ask for a second-home price from a bank where you hold deposits and from a mortgage company, on a loan that will be kept and on one that will be sold. In 2025 the unsold group priced second and primary homes identically.
• Check the 80% shelf. Below 80% CLTV the median 30-year rate was 6.75%; above 80% up to 90% it was 7.375%. Ten more points of cash can be worth a rate step and a lower price adjustment (3.375% of the loan at 75.01% to 80% against 4.125% above 80%).
• Decide on occupancy before you apply. The loan, the tax treatment of the house and your state's property-tax rules all depend on whether it is a second home or a rental.
• Compare to paying cash. Today's 30-year average is 7.32%; the cost of the loan against what your cash earns elsewhere is a household decision, not a data point.
• Know who answers this. Whether to borrow, how much to pull from a taxable account or retirement plan, and how the home fits your estate plan are for a licensed adviser and a tax professional.

This is analysis of public documents, not investment, legal or tax advice.

FAQ

Sources, read and saved October 23, 2026: FFIEC/CFPB HMDA Data Browser, nationwide originated and denied conventional loans for 2024 and 2025 (the request URL is in the data file; the browser's API has no occupancy filter, so second-residence, principal-residence and investment-property first-lien loans were selected from the file by our script dl.py and every statistic computed by an.py and an2.py), FFIEC public LAR data field definitions and the FFIEC 2025 filer list for lender names; Fannie Mae Selling Guide B2-1.1-01 Occupancy Types and B2-1.2-01, the Fannie Mae Eligibility Matrix dated August 5, 2026 and the Fannie Mae Loan-Level Price Adjustment Matrix dated September 30, 2026; Freddie Mac maximum LTV table (sf.freddiemac.com, read October 12, 2026) and Primary Mortgage Market Survey (week of October 22, 2026); FRED series MORTGAGE30US; 26 U.S.C. 280A. Medians, shares, premiums, payments and the 2025 survey mean are our arithmetic. This is analysis of public documents, not investment, legal or tax advice, and not a loan offer.