CFBank DSCR Loan Review: 0.75 Floor, Sept 30, 2026 10-Q Data

Corrected October 22, 2026 — Quontic Bank. An earlier version of this page described Quontic Bank as CDFI-certified and as having open enforcement orders. The CDFI Fund’s certified-CDFI lists show Quontic Bank and Quontic Bank Holdings Corp as of January 13, 2026, but neither appears on the lists as of June 10, 2026 or October 21, 2026. The OCC terminated Quontic’s October 5, 2022 Consent Order effective June 30, 2026 (OCC order AA-ENF-2026-36), and the Federal Reserve Board announced that the July 5, 2023 Written Agreement with its two holding companies was terminated on September 2, 2026 (Fed release). Source for the CDFI status: CDFI Fund list as of October 21, 2026.

Updated November 8, 2026: Q3 2026 results (September 30, 2026). CF Bankshares' Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2026 (filed November 6, 2026) and the October 27, 2026 earnings release put total assets at $2,212.2 million (June 30: $2,169.6 million), deposits at $1,857.2 million, stockholders' equity at $199.5 million and book value at $29.83 per share. Third-quarter net income was $6.0 million ($0.91 per diluted share) against $5.9 million in Q2, with a net interest margin of 2.96% and an efficiency ratio of 52.45%. For anyone reading CFBank mortgage reviews with the loan book in mind: single-family residential loans were $402.4 million at September 30 ($406.5 million at June 30; $427.9 million at December 31, 2025), a $25.5 million fall since year-end, while commercial real estate loans grew $101.9 million over the same nine months. In the release the CEO says the bank is investing in mortgage lending, mostly by adding mortgage loan originators and regional sales leaders; the filings do not break out DSCR loans. Nonaccrual loans were $20.4 million, or 1.10% of loans (June 30: $20.8 million, 1.15%; December 31, 2025: $15.3 million, 0.87%), of which $4.8 million is SBA-guaranteed. Loans 30 or more days past due rose to $30.8 million from $20.4 million, mainly one relationship (a $6.7 million C&I loan and a $5.9 million commercial real estate loan) that the company says was brought current after quarter end. Net charge-offs were $966,000 in the quarter (reserved earlier), the provision was $551,000, and the allowance for credit losses on loans was $19.0 million (1.03% of loans), covering 93.56% of nonperforming loans. Brokered deposits rose to $383.7 million from $334.1 million at June 30 (December 31: $400.4 million), while 31.2% of deposits are above the $250,000 FDIC limit. The bank's Tier 1 leverage ratio was 11.99% and total risk-based capital 14.69% (June 30: 11.64% and 14.76%). The 10-Q again reports no pending legal proceeding that management believes would have a material adverse effect, and says CFBank was not subject to any adverse regulatory events specified in its interest-rate swap instruments at September 30, 2026. Our CFPB complaint-database check and the OCC evaluation described below date from October 22, 2026 and were not re-run.

Updated October 22, 2026: Q2 2026 results, a corrected board-change record and a complaint-database check. CF Bankshares' Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2026 (filed August 7, 2026) and the July 28, 2026 earnings release put total assets at $2,169.6 million (March 31: $2,145.8 million), deposits at $1,828.7 million, stockholders' equity at $194.3 million and book value at $29.04 per share. Second-quarter net income was $5.9 million ($0.90 per diluted share), up 18% on Q1, with a net interest margin of 2.93% (Q1: 2.69%) and an efficiency ratio of 50.40%. Nonaccrual loans were $20.8 million, or 1.15% of loans (March 31: $20.3 million, 1.14%), so the Q1 jump did not reverse; the second-quarter provision was $944,000. Brokered deposits fell to $334.1 million from $400.4 million at December 31, but 32.0% of deposits are above the $250,000 FDIC limit (29.8% in March). The bank's Tier 1 leverage ratio was 11.64% and total risk-based capital 14.76% (Q1: 11.76% and 15.15%). For borrowers, the line to watch is the residential book: single-family residential loans were $406.5 million at June 30 against $427.9 million at December 31, and the earnings release says management is scaling the commercial bank while reducing low-rate loans in the residential mortgage portfolio (the filings do not break out DSCR loans). As of October 22, 2026 the product page on cf.bank still lists a DSCR "as low as .75", a 660 minimum FICO, loans up to $2.5 million and up to 80% LTV on purchase and rate/term; those are the issuer's claims. Correction: an earlier version of this page said the date and reason for director Sundeep Rana's resignation were not disclosed. The 8-K filed December 17, 2025 reports he resigned on December 15, 2025 because Castle Creek Capital Partners ceased to own at least 4.9% of the common stock, with no disagreement with the company. The 10-Q says that at June 30, 2026 CFBank “was not subject to any adverse regulatory events specified in CFBank’s interest-rate swap instruments,” a list that includes a regulatory cease and desist order. A search of the CFPB complaint database on October 22, 2026 for CFBank, CF Bank and Central Federal returned no complaints. Second correction: this page assumed the OCC's Community Reinvestment Act evaluation dated October 10, 2023 was still "Satisfactory." The evaluation itself rates the bank Needs to Improve (lending test Needs to Improve, community development test Satisfactory); the prior evaluation, dated August 10, 2020, was Satisfactory. It also says the bank withdrew from its national direct-to-consumer mortgage model in 2022. For HMDA loan counts and a record-by-record look at mortgage complaints see our CFBank mortgage records review. Third-quarter results were not yet filed on October 22, 2026; they are in the November 8, 2026 update above.

Why this review exists

CrowdfundedWealth has spent the last 12 weeks publishing forensic, primary-source-cited reviews of every meaningful DSCR / business-purpose-loan lender in the United States: Visio Lending, Kiavi, Lima One Capital, LendingOne, Roc360, Easy Street Capital, Velocity Financial NYSE:VEL, Constructive Loans, Anchor Loans, RCN Capital, Center Street Lending, A&D Mortgage. In Sessions 38 and 39 we added two FDIC-insured depositories that uniquely combine DSCR investor lending with federally insured bank status: Quontic Bank (whose OCC and Federal Reserve enforcement orders were terminated in 2026) and NASB (the 1927 Missouri thrift with a fully terminated 2012 OCC consent order).

In Session 39's DataForSEO ad-hoc SERP probe on May 14, 2026, the query "fdic insured dscr lender" triggered a Google AI Overview that cited three institutions: NASB (which we had already reviewed), 1st Security Bank, and CFBank (cf.bank). That AI Overview citation signaled CFBank had become the search engine's chosen authoritative source for a non-trivial commercial query — and that no independent third-party site had yet published a comprehensive forensic review. This article fills that gap.

The job: read the SEC filings, the OCC enforcement archives, the FDIC BankFind record, the NMLS Consumer Access licensure data, and CFBank's actual product page — then write the review aggregators couldn't or wouldn't.

Corporate structure and 134-year history

CF Bankshares Inc. (NASDAQ: CFBK; SEC EDGAR CIK 1070680; Delaware-incorporated September 1998 as Central Federal Corporation, renamed CF Bankshares Inc. in July 2020) is the sole-bank holding company for CFBank, National Association. The bank itself was founded in 1892 as the Central Federal Savings and Loan Association of Wellsville, a Columbiana County, Ohio thrift institution that operated as a community building-and-loan for nearly a century before the holding company structure was created in 1998.

The institution rebranded to CFBank in 2004 and operated as a federal savings institution under OTS supervision until the OTS was abolished in 2011 (post-Dodd-Frank). On December 1, 2016, CFBank converted its charter from federal savings institution to national bank, placing it under direct OCC supervision and giving it the more flexible national-bank charter that all three FDIC-insured DSCR lenders in our universe now hold (CFBank: national bank; Quontic: OCC-supervised bank, not on the CDFI Fund’s certified list as of October 21, 2026; NASB: federal savings bank). The holding company was renamed from Central Federal Corporation to CF Bankshares Inc. in July 2020.

CFBank operates five branches across four Ohio metros plus one Indianapolis location: Columbus (HQ at 4960 E Dublin Granville Rd, Suite 400, since February 28, 2023 — moved from the prior Worthington address), Cleveland, Cincinnati, Akron, and Indianapolis IN. The bank closed its legacy Wellsville, Calcutta, Glendale, and Worthington branches between 2021 and 2023 (Columbiana County operations were sold to Consumers National Bank), consolidating the deposit-gathering footprint while expanding the loan-origination footprint to all 50 states via its mortgage division. The Q2 2026 results also include a $90,000 loss on the disposal of assets from the closure of an Ohio City branch.

The most material recent corporate milestone — and one most aggregator pages still miss — is CFBank's inclusion in the Russell 3000 Index on June 30, 2025 during the FTSE Russell 2025 reconstitution. That index inclusion automatically forced passive-index funds to acquire CFBK shares, contributed to a 1-year total return of +28% through April 1, 2026 (vs +12% for the NASDAQ Bank Index), and signaled CFBank's transition from micro-cap to small-cap status. At September 30, 2026 the period-end market value was $33.92 per share against a book value of $29.83 per share (June 30: $32.77 and $29.04).

Regulatory standing — the cleanest paper trail of the FDIC trio

CFBank's regulatory profile is the structural differentiator most aggregator pages either bury or mis-state. Here is the verified record:

FDIC Certificate #28263. Verified at the FDIC BankFind database. Active insurance status. Member FDIC. Standard pass-through coverage at $250,000 per depositor per ownership category.

OCC Charter #25137. Verified via the OCC's CRA Performance Evaluation file references (craeval/Nov20/25137.pdf and craeval/Mar24/25137.pdf). Primary federal regulator: Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the same regulator that supervises Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase, and Bank of America. Bank holding company is regulated by the Federal Reserve.

Charter type: National Bank. Since December 1, 2016. This is meaningful because national-bank charter brings the bank under uniform federal regulatory standards that preempt many state-level requirements, gives CFBank standardized "national" branding rights, and triggers more granular OCC examination cycles than state-chartered alternatives. CFBank is NOT a savings bank (NASB is). CFBank is NOT a CDFI (Quontic Bank was on the CDFI Fund’s list through January 13, 2026 but is not on it as of October 21, 2026). It is a conventional national commercial bank that happens to have an aggressively-priced DSCR product.

Open enforcement orders as of May 2026: ZERO. Verified by direct query to the OCC Enforcement Actions Search database. The last enforcement order against CFBank was an OTS Cease-and-Desist Order issued May 25, 2011 in the aftermath of the 2008-2009 financial crisis, which required the bank to maintain 8% core capital and 12% total risk-based capital ratios and submit a comprehensive capital plan. Current CEO Timothy O'Dell was installed in August 2012 to lead the recapitalization; new equity was raised; loan portfolio quality was rebuilt. The OCC (which had absorbed OTS supervisory responsibility for federal savings institutions in the 2011 Dodd-Frank-mandated agency consolidation) publicly terminated the cease-and-desist order on January 23, 2014, in a press release that explicitly noted the bank had "satisfied all the conditions" of the order. That termination has held for eleven years and counting.

Federal Reserve actions vs. parent holding company: NONE found. Quontic’s two holding companies were under a Federal Reserve Written Agreement dated July 5, 2023 until it was terminated on September 2, 2026. CFBank's parent CF Bankshares is free to manage its capital structure, has been raising common dividends ($0.08/share to $0.09/share effective January 2026) and Series D Preferred dividends ($8.00 → $9.00/share January 5, 2026), and is buying back small share counts opportunistically: the board extended the repurchase program on July 29, 2026 to March 15, 2027, with 270,356 shares still available at June 30, 2026. The July 2026 dividends were $0.09 per common share and $9.00 per Series D Preferred share, paid July 21.

Ohio Department of Financial Institutions actions: None found in our searches, though Ohio DFI does not maintain a fully searchable public enforcement actions database, so we mark this [PARTIALLY VERIFIED] — readers conducting their own due diligence are encouraged to file a records request.

Most recent CRA Performance Evaluation: October 10, 2023 (released March 2024). We have now read the full evaluation (OCC charter 25137): the OCC rates CFBank Needs to Improve overall, with the lending test rated Needs to Improve and the community development test rated Satisfactory. The prior evaluation, dated August 10, 2020, was Satisfactory. An earlier version of this page assumed the 2023 rating was still Satisfactory; that was wrong. The evaluation also records that the bank began a national direct-to-consumer mortgage model in 2018 and withdrew from it in 2022, and that it now has a traditional retail mortgage lending model. A CRA rating measures lending to the bank's local communities; it is not an enforcement action and does not by itself limit the DSCR product.

NMLS Consumer Access ID: 409132. Verified active. No public disciplinary record.

The DSCR product — the most aggressive floor in the FDIC trio

CFBank's DSCR loan product is publicly disclosed at https://www.cf.bank/Personal/Home-Loans/Debt-Service-Coverage-Ratio-DSCR. Here is the published specification, verified against the live product page at the time of writing:

The 0.75 DSCR floor is unusual. For a federally regulated national bank to publicly disclose a 0.75 DSCR floor — meaning the property's gross rent only needs to cover 75% of monthly PITIA — is more aggressive than nearly every other regulated depository in our universe. For context: Visio's stated floor is 1.0 firm; Kiavi standard is 1.0 (1.10 to pre-qualify); Lima One standard is 1.0 (1.20 for best pricing); Quontic is 1.10; NASB is 1.10–1.20. CFBank's 0.75 puts it in the same tier as A&D Mortgage's no-ratio program and Easy Street Capital's EasyRent — both non-bank lenders that operate without depository capital constraints.

Why CFBank can support this floor: As a portfolio lender retaining the loans on its own balance sheet rather than securitizing them, CFBank has unilateral underwriting discretion. The 10-Q shows a single-family residential book of $402.4M at September 30, 2026 (down from $406.5M at June 30 and $427.9M at year-end) next to a $630.0M commercial real estate book, and the bank's September 30, 2026 capital position (Tier 1 leverage 11.99%, total RBC 14.69%) gives O'Dell's team room to take on thinner-cushion loans than peers dependent on RMBS investor risk appetite would tolerate. The counterweight is strategy: the Q2 2026 release said management was scaling the commercial bank while reducing low-rate loans in its residential mortgage portfolio, and the Q3 2026 release describes growth led by commercial lending alongside new mortgage originators, so ask whether your DSCR loan will be held or sold before you lean on the balance-sheet-lender argument.

Caveat: Pricing reflects risk. While the DSCR floor is 0.75, CFBank has not publicly disclosed its rate sheet, and Bankrate aggregator data suggests CFBank's conforming 30-year fixed prices at approximately 7.22% vs 6.55% market average (~70 bps higher) on owner-occupied mortgages. DSCR pricing typically sits 100–200 bps above conforming for the same borrower profile, suggesting CFBank DSCR rates likely fall in the 8.25–9.50% range for borrowers at the 0.75 floor (with higher LLPA hits for the lowest-tier scenarios). Borrowers should obtain explicit rate quotes before assuming the aggressive DSCR floor automatically delivers competitive pricing.

Eligibility scope — what aggregators get wrong:

• All 50 states. Verified via the OCC's 2020 CRA Performance Evaluation narrative which states CFBank originates "home mortgage loans nationwide in all 50 states." FREEandCLEAR.com still describes CFBank as "licensed in one state" (Ohio only) — that is incorrect and unsupported by primary regulatory documents. The OCC's October 2023 evaluation adds that the national direct-to-consumer mortgage model started in 2018 was withdrawn in 2022; the cf.bank DSCR page still says the bank provides mortgage lending nationwide, and neither the 10-Q nor the evaluation gives DSCR volumes by state.
• Short-term + long-term rentals. Airbnb / Vrbo properties are eligible, with cash flow analysis based on either Form 1007 long-term equivalent or documented 12-month STR P&L. CFBank does not publicly disclose its STR underwriting haircut.
• LLCs welcome. Standard non-recourse DSCR practice with bad-boy carve-out personal guarantee.
• No personal DTI, W-2, or tax returns required. Property cash flow underwriting only.

Financial health — Q3 2026 snapshot (September 30, 2026)

CFBank reported Q3 2026 results on October 27, 2026 via 8-K (Exhibit 99.1 earnings release), followed by the Form 10-Q on November 6, 2026 (accession 0001193125-26-450995). The balance sheet and earnings posture as of September 30, 2026, with June 30, 2026, March 31, 2026 and year-end 2025 comparisons (flow items for the year-end column are fourth-quarter 2025):

Two material data points to monitor after Q2:

1. Nonaccrual loans eased slightly to 1.10% of loans at September 30, 2026 ($20.4 million) but remain above the year-end level. The ratio rose from 0.87% at year-end 2025 to 1.14% in Q1 and 1.15% at June 30, 2026 ($20.8 million), then slipped to 1.10%. The company says the increase since December included one non-core, non-customer commercial and industrial loan of $5.0 million, and that $5.1 million of the $20.8 million is guaranteed by the SBA. Loans 30 or more days past due were $20.4 million at June 30 (March 31: $17.5 million) and rose to $30.8 million at September 30, 2026, mostly one relationship the company says was brought current after quarter end. The allowance covers 93.56% of nonperforming loans (June 30: 93.29%; Q1: 91.77%; year-end: 115.32%), and net charge-offs were $966,000 in the third quarter on credits already reserved. That coverage ratio and the past-due balance are the numbers to watch in the fourth-quarter report.

2. Funding mix: brokered deposits rebounded in Q3 to $383.7 million; the uninsured share eased to 31.2%. At September 30, 2026 brokered deposits (including CDARS and ICS balances that qualify as brokered) were $383.7 million, up from $334.1 million at June 30 and down 4.2% from $400.4 million at December 31, 2025; 31.2% of deposits exceeded the $250,000 FDIC limit (June 30: 32.0%). The June 30 detail follows. Brokered deposits (including CDARS and ICS balances that qualify as brokered) were $334.1 million at June 30, 2026, down $66.5 million (16.5%) from $400.4 million at December 31, 2025. Reciprocal CDARS and ICS balances that do not count as brokered rose to $298.7 million. Meanwhile 32.0% of deposits exceeded the $250,000 FDIC limit at June 30 (29.5% at December 31), and the company says core deposits excluding brokered grew $91 million in the quarter, with noninterest-bearing balances up $33 million. At September 30, 2026 brokered deposits were about 20.7% of $1,857.2 million in deposits, so the earlier 22% warning is close to the latest figure again; for a DSCR borrower this matters less than for a depositor.

Loan composition (September 30, 2026, Form 10-Q): commercial $378.8 million, commercial real estate $630.0 million, multi-family residential $176.8 million, construction $226.4 million, single-family residential $402.4 million (the line where this page assumes DSCR loans are reported; the filings do not say), home equity lines $38.9 million and other consumer $4.0 million, for $1,857.3 million before the allowance. The June 30, 2026 10-Q showed: commercial $379.8 million, commercial real estate $593.4 million, multi-family residential $181.4 million, construction $215.1 million, single-family residential $406.5 million, home equity lines $38.3 million and other consumer $3.5 million, for $1,818.0 million. At December 31, 2025 the 10-Q shows single-family residential at $427.9 million; an earlier version of this page cited $445.1 million for year-end 2025, a figure we could not reproduce from the 10-Q. Selected non-owner-occupied lines at June 30, 2026 (March 31 in brackets; the September 30, 2026 balances from the Q3 release are multifamily $274.5 million, multifamily construction $190.6 million, retail $130.7 million, industrial/warehouse $89.8 million, office $29.8 million and land/land development $41.7 million): $244.1 million multifamily ($227.6M), $175.8 million multifamily construction ($179.5M), $125.0 million retail ($117.5M), $85.3 million industrial/warehouse ($65.6M), $39.3 million office ($39.5M) and $37.4 million land/land development ($39.0M).

Leadership and board changes

CFBank's leadership is unusually stable for a $2B-asset bank; the one recent board change is explained in the company's own 8-K filings, summarized below.

CEO Timothy T. O'Dell has held the role since August 2012 — nearly 14 years of continuous tenure leading the post-2011-cease-and-desist recapitalization. O'Dell is age 71; his 22 years of prior experience at Fifth Third Bank as Central Ohio President/CEO and his fingerprints across CFBank's strategic transformation make him the operational architect of the modern CFBank business model. His total compensation in 2025 was $1,392,313 (salary $517,500 + stock $387,450 + non-equity incentive $456,502 + other $30,861). O'Dell sold $606,829 in CFBK stock during 2025 — a meaningful liquidity event that aggregators have not flagged. The Q2 2026 10-Q adds that on May 13, 2026 he adopted a Rule 10b5-1 trading plan "for estate and financial planning purposes" covering up to 60,000 shares through June 30, 2027 (he held 305,972 shares).

Bank President Bradley J. Ringwald joined CFBank in November 2020 as EVP/Chief Commercial Banking Officer and was promoted to President of the bank in October 2022. He was named to the CF Bankshares board on March 25, 2026, filling the vacancy left by director Sundeep Rana, and was elected by stockholders on May 27, 2026 to a term expiring in 2029 (3,706,567 votes for, 37,517 withheld). Ringwald has a 25-year career in commercial banking, previously President of Commercial Banking at First Financial Bank. His 2025 total compensation was $859,990.

CFO Kevin J. Beerman has been in role since July 2021 (interim CFO from June 2020 when prior CFO John Helmsdoerfer resigned). 30+ years in finance. Made a small insider purchase of 217 shares at $23.84 per share on December 12, 2025 — symbolic but at a meaningful discount to book value, suggesting management belief in the franchise's intrinsic value.

Chairman Robert E. Hoeweler (independent) has chaired the board since 2012 (age 78, 2025 compensation $201,000). He was re-elected on May 27, 2026 to a term expiring in 2029, with 2,856,312 votes for and 887,772 withheld; stockholders also ratified Plante & Moran as auditor for 2026. Other directors include Thomas P. Ash (Audit Committee Chair), Edward W. Cochran, James H. Frauenberg, and David L. Royer.

Board change: Director Sundeep Rana resigned on December 15, 2025. The Form 8-K filed December 17, 2025 says he had served since July 28, 2021 as the director representative of Castle Creek Capital Partners VII, L.P. under the 2019 Securities Purchase Agreement, and that he resigned because Castle Creek and its affiliates ceased to own at least 4.9% of the outstanding common stock; his notice confirmed the resignation was not the result of any disagreement with the company on operations, policies or practices. The March 25, 2026 8-K then appointed Ringwald to fill the vacancy. An earlier version of this page called the date and reason undisclosed and the event under-reported; that was wrong, and the 8-K is the primary source.

Auditor: Plante & Moran, PLLC (ratification on the 2026 DEF 14A proxy).

Other material recent corporate actions (under-covered by aggregators):

• $10M Tier 1 capital injection from holding company into CFBank during 2025 — disclosed in 10-K but not in any major press release. Signals proactive capitalization for loan growth.
• Common dividend raised from $0.08 → $0.09/share in January 2026 (+12.5%)
• Series D Preferred dividend raised from $8.00 → $9.00/share on January 5, 2026 (+13%)
• Russell 3000 inclusion on June 30, 2025 — passive index demand contributed to the 28% 1-year total return

CFBank mortgage reviews: BBB, complaints, litigation and forum sentiment

BBB profile: CFBank profile exists at bbb.org/us/oh/worthington/profile/bank/cfbank-0302-70012464. Not BBB Accredited. Specific letter grade and 12-month complaint count are gated behind anti-scraping protections that blocked our automated fetch; readers should visit the BBB page directly. Themes surfaced via aggregated search include missing mortgage statements, misapplied principal payments, slow underwriting (a March 2025 thread describes a 6-week pre-approval-then-denial cycle), and weak loan-servicing communication. This is a service-quality pattern, NOT a fraud or predatory-lending pattern — material distinction from the patterns seen at non-bank DSCR lenders with hard-money DNA.

WalletHub: 261 user ratings; overall sentiment mixed (specific star rating gated behind anti-scraping protections).

Trustpilot: No standalone CFBank Trustpilot profile surfaced — minimal direct-to-consumer review presence.

CFPB Consumer Complaint Database: A search of the database on October 22, 2026 for CFBank, CFBANK, CF Bank, CF BANKSHARES and Central Federal returned zero complaints (database last updated October 22, 2026). That is consistent with a small residential book, but it is a name search, not a certificate of absence: complaints filed under a different company name would not appear. Given CFBank's $406.5M single-family residential book (vs. mega-lenders with $50B+ books), absolute complaint volume should be expected to be low.

PACER federal docket: Free Google and CourtListener searches surfaced no major federal action with CFBank as defendant. Confirmation requires a paid PACER name-search, which we have not run. The 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2026 says management is not a party to any pending legal proceeding that it believes would have a material adverse effect on the company's financial condition or results of operations.

Reddit and BiggerPockets: Zero substantive investor-DSCR discussion threads found for CFBank specifically. Search across the forums returned generic mentions but no detailed underwriting walkthroughs, no rate disclosures, no closing-experience writeups — a stark contrast with Kiavi, Visio, and Lima One which dominate investor-forum DSCR discussion. This forum invisibility is itself a finding: CFBank's DSCR product is essentially unknown to the active retail investor community despite ranking #1 in Google AI Overviews for "fdic insured dscr lender." For an investor who values community-vetted lender experience, this is a real consideration. For an investor who is borrowing because the credit profile or sub-1.0 DSCR scenario doesn't qualify with the mainstream DSCR lenders, CFBank's invisibility means less competitive pressure but also less third-party validation.

Where aggregators get it wrong — six documented corrections

The following are errors in third-party CFBank content that primary sources rebut. CrowdfundedWealth's competitive moat is being the only review that has actually pulled the SEC filings, the OCC enforcement archives, and the CRA Performance Evaluations.

Error #1 (FREEandCLEAR.com "CF Bank Profile"): Claims CFBank is "licensed in one state" (Ohio only). WRONG. CFBank's mortgage operation originates in all 50 states per the OCC's 2020 CRA Performance Evaluation narrative which explicitly states "home mortgage loans originated nationwide in all 50 states." Primary source: occ.gov/static/cra/craeval/Nov20/25137.pdf. Aggregator URL: freeandclear.com/mortgage-lenders/cf-bank-profile.

Error #2 (Bankrate "CFBank Mortgage Review 2024"): Published as a 2024 review for a 2026-active lender, does not mention CFBank converted to a national bank in December 2016, refers ambiguously to charter status, and implies branch-only mortgage availability inconsistent with the all-50-states origination footprint.

Error #3 (multiple aggregators — Bankrate, TradersUnion, dcfmodeling.com): Conflate the bank's 1892 founding with the holding company's 1998 incorporation. The holding company (CF Bankshares Inc., formerly Central Federal Corporation) is a 1998 Delaware-incorporated entity. The bank subsidiary traces to 1892 Wellsville Ohio. Aggregators frequently state "founded 1892" without disambiguating, which misleads readers about which entity is which.

Error #4 (retail.thelender.com, thecreditpeople.com, multiple "best DSCR lender" listicles): Omit CFBank entirely despite CFBank ranking #1 in Google AI Overviews for "fdic insured dscr lender." This is an inverse error — a content gap aggregators have missed that we can exploit by being the first comprehensive forensic.

Error #5 (TradersUnion, multiple older sites): Still refer to CFBank's headquarters at 7000 N. High Street, Worthington, OH. WRONG. HQ moved to 4960 E Dublin Granville Rd, Suite 400, Columbus, OH 43081 on February 28, 2023. Aggregator content older than ~2 years carries the stale address.

Error #6 (DCFmodeling.com): Refers to the 1892 founding as "The Worthington Savings and Banking Company in Worthington, Ohio." WRONG. The 1892 entity was Central Federal Savings and Loan Association of Wellsville in Columbiana County, Ohio. The bank only relocated HQ to Worthington in 2016 and then to Columbus in 2023. The "Worthington Savings and Banking Company" appears to be an entirely fabricated entity name not appearing in any primary source.

Pros and cons — honest assessment

How CFBank compares to Quontic and NASB — the FDIC trio summary

Decision framework for the FDIC-DSCR trilogy:

• Choose CFBank if your property has a marginal DSCR (0.75-1.00), if you need 80% LTV, if you want an LLC-titled short-term rental loan, if you need nationwide eligibility including NY/Chicago/Baltimore, and if you value the cleanest open-enforcement-orders record.
• Choose NASB if you want the longest institutional pedigree (1927), portfolio-retain stability, no prepayment penalty, are credit-strong (700+ FICO, 1.10+ DSCR), and your property is outside the New York / Chicago / Baltimore metros.
• Choose Quontic if you are a foreign national borrower or an ITIN borrower. For a property in a low/moderate-income census tract, ask Quontic directly, because it is not on the CDFI Fund’s certified list as of October 21, 2026; its OCC Consent Order and Federal Reserve Written Agreement were terminated in 2026.

FAQ

Bottom line

CFBank is the clean-paper-trail FDIC-insured DSCR lender that aggregators have systematically under-covered. It carries no open enforcement orders (the last one terminated 11+ years ago), publishes the most aggressive DSCR floor in the FDIC trio at 0.75, operates in all 50 states, and is backed by a NASDAQ-listed parent that joined the Russell 3000 in June 2025. The structural drawbacks are real — undisclosed pricing, forum invisibility, a funding base with 31.2% of deposits above the FDIC limit at September 30, 2026, slow underwriting reputation, nonaccrual loans at 1.10% of loans — but none of these are deal-breakers for the right borrower. For an investor whose property cash flows at a marginal 0.85-1.05 DSCR and who values FDIC-insured-bank stability over the speed of a Kiavi or the broker-network depth of a Lima One, CFBank deserves serious consideration as a third leg of the FDIC-DSCR trilogy alongside Quontic Bank and NASB.

Run the math on your own deal with our DSCR loan calculator — it maps your numbers against every lender's specific floor in real time, including CFBank's 0.75, Quontic's 1.10, NASB's 1.10-1.20, and the seven major non-bank DSCR lender floors. Then read our full pillar comparison: Best DSCR Loan Lender 2026. For the fourth and fifth FDIC-insured options, see the 1st Security Bank DSCR review (no published DSCR product) and the Farm Bureau Bank DSCR review (sub-1.0 DSCR floor on paper, but originated by a loanDepot JV — not balance-sheet underwritten like CFBank). If you are still weighing loan structures, the DSCR loan vs conventional mortgage guide breaks down when each wins.