ClearEdge Lending Review 2026: Santander's 38-Loan Diligence File

What ClearEdge Lending is, and why a borrower never deals with it directly

The company website describes ClearEdge Lending LLC as a lender “working with TPOs,” that is, with third-party originators such as mortgage brokers, and the footer reads “NMLS 1924815” with an address at 20 Enterprise, Suite 350, Aliso Viejo, California. It says the site “is intended for industry professionals and is not intended for use by consumers.” The About page states the company has been “originating and securitizing Non-QM loans since its inception in 2015.” These are company statements, and we did not check them against NMLS Consumer Access, which we could not read.

For a rental-property investor the product is Investor Connect DSCR. The lender’s own page lists qualifying on the property’s rental income (“gross rental income divided by P(I)TIA”), 1-4 family properties, closing in an LLC or corporation, loans up to $2.5 million, a credit score as low as 620 and a DSCR “down to .75.” It also sells bank-statement, full-documentation, asset-depletion, jumbo and closed-end second-mortgage programs. Because the channel is brokers only, you meet ClearEdge through a broker who submits your file; the broker, not ClearEdge, quotes you. See our DSCR loan requirements and DSCR loan rates pages for how those terms compare across lenders.

The Santander filing: what it is and what it is not

Under SEC Rule 15Ga-2, the findings and conclusions of a third-party due diligence report on the loans behind asset-backed securities must be filed on Form ABS-15G. Santander Bank, N.A. has filed nine such reports since March 2025 for its Santander Mortgage Asset Receivable Trust series, and ClearEdge Lending is named in all nine. The June 18, 2026 filing is for the trust 2026-NQMS1 and its Exhibit 99.1 is the SitusAMC report.

What it is: a sample of 38 loans, $20,717,381 of original principal, with origination dates from July 2025 through September 2025, reviewed under a “Credit and Compliance Scope” (25 loans) and a “Business Purpose Scope” (13 loans), graded on the Fitch criteria. All 38 are fixed rate. By occupancy, 18 are on a primary residence ($13.66 million), 17 on investment property ($5.52 million) and 3 on a second home ($1.54 million). By property, 22 are single-family detached, 12 planned-unit developments, 2 low-rise condominiums, one two-family and one three-family. By purpose, 19 are non-first-time purchases, 7 first-time purchases, 10 cash-out refinances and 2 rate-and-term refinances. One loan of $490,500 has a term over 360 months.

What it is not: a review of ClearEdge’s whole business, a pricing survey, or a statement that these loans are in the trust. Names, states and addresses are redacted, so we cannot say where the properties are. The report says the loans were “originated by multiple correspondent lenders,” while ClearEdge’s name sits on every row in the guideline fields, so we describe the loans as underwritten to ClearEdge guidelines and make no claim about who closed each one. Our arithmetic: the average loan is $545,194 ($20,717,381 over 38), which is why the DSCR loans, which are smaller, are best read row by row below.

The nine filings

The grade columns cover each exhibit’s whole pool, not only the ClearEdge rows, so only the last line is a ClearEdge-only result. In the earlier filings ClearEdge is one of several names in the tape: 84 of 188 rows in March 2025, 51 of 332 in May 2025. The count of rows is our count of the name in the tape. We found these nine through the SEC full-text search for the lender’s name and did not read other securitizers’ filings.

Grades and exceptions in the June 18, 2026 file

Overall, 29 loans (76.32%) received a final grade of A and 9 (23.68%) a grade of B. For compliance, the 13 DSCR loans carry no grade, so the 25 others split 22 A and 3 B; for credit 31 A and 7 B; for property all 38 are A.

The exceptions are those that stayed open at grade B; the exception table also lists 25 findings that were cured or cleared and ended at A. That matters for reading the numbers: a lot of the file’s early trouble was fixed before the grade was set. On the DSCR side (our reading of the exception table) three findings were raised on three loans. Row 5 was flagged for a missing spousal consent, and the comment says “Cleared. Not required.” Row 6 was flagged because the hazard insurance policy “Effective Date is after closing”; a corrected declarations page was uploaded and the finding cleared. Row 10 was a guideline exception because the subject “is a triplex,” which the client chose to waive with compensating factors, so that loan ended at B. The other 12 exceptions at grade B, and 8 of the 9 B loans, are on the 25 non-DSCR loans.

Tape integrity: where the lender’s data did not match the file

The reviewer compared fields on the sale tape with the loan files and counted 151 discrepancies across 35 fields, 15.07% of 1,002 comparisons. The largest were Contract Sales Price (10 of 37 loans), PITIA Reserves Months (8 of 8) and Product Description (8 of 8). The fields a buyer prices on, Original Interest Rate and Original Loan Amount, had no discrepancy on 38 loans, and Representative FICO differed on 2 loans. The DSCR field itself differed on 1 of 11 compared (9.09%). Discrepancies of this kind are common in loan sales and are a data-hygiene signal, not a finding about the borrower’s loan. The note rate you sign is the one in your documents.

The 13 DSCR loans, row by row

The tape lists each loan with a row number. We read the qualifying rate, qualifying credit score, DSCR and monthly principal and interest from the tape for the 13 rows whose document type is DSCR. Loan sizes are not given by row in the text we could read, so we do not show them.

What the table says, in our arithmetic: the median rate is 7.125%, the median credit score 762 and the median DSCR 1.11. Rates of 8.125% and above went to the two loans with scores of 700 or lower and coverage of 1.04 or less; the loan with a 664 score priced at the median, 7.125%, with coverage of 1.14. Row 6 closed with a DSCR of 0.83: rent of $4,850 against a monthly payment including taxes and insurance of $5,831.88, which is 0.08 above the “.75” floor ClearEdge advertises. Row 9 closed at 1.00 and 6.5%, the lowest rate, which shows that rate depended on more than coverage and score; leverage and other terms are not in the tape we could read.

A worked example (our arithmetic): on $100,000 borrowed over 30 years, principal and interest is $673.72 a month at 7.125% and $786.70 at 8.75%, a difference of $112.98 a month, or $1,355.76 a year per $100,000. The spread between the cheapest and dearest of the 13 loans, 2.25 points, is worth about that much on every $100,000 and is why the score and coverage you bring matter in this program.

The other 25 loans, for comparison: 14 are bank-statement loans, 5 full-documentation, 3 asset-depletion and 3 CPA or profit-and-loss loans; they are larger (the P&I on some exceeds $10,000 a month) and are not the product a rental investor would use. Our page on bank statement loans and the overview of non-QM loans explain them.

ClearEdge in the 2025 federal mortgage data (HMDA)

HMDA, the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act file, lists every originated loan of reporting lenders. The 2025 filer list has an entry for ClearEdge Lending LLC (LEI 549300HRLROF7PLJ6735). We tabulated its 2,742 originated loans ($1,821.8 million, 42 states).

Our DSCR-type group is stricter than some of our other pages: business purpose, investment property, first lien and closed-end, and for the national column also a term of 360 months or more. HMDA has no DSCR field, so it is a proxy for rental-income loans, not a list of loans with a DSCR test. It includes 980 of ClearEdge’s 982 business-purpose investor loans; 980 of the 982 report no debt-to-income ratio, which fits a DSCR product.

What stands out: price is at the national middle (7.25%), loans are bigger than the national median, leverage is lower (70% against 75%), and interest-only is four times as common (28.4% against 7.0%). The 13 tape loans (median 7.125%) are consistent with that. By purpose, 557 are purchases (median loan $275,000), 306 cash-out refinances ($305,000) and 117 rate-and-term refinances ($305,000); all have a median rate of 7.25%. 787 are one-unit properties, 114 two-unit, 38 three-unit, 36 four-unit and 5 have five or more units. 406 loans are at 7% or less, 126 at 8% or more and 20 at 9% or more.

Where. Loans are in 38 states. Florida has 305 (median rate 7.25%, median loan $295,000) and California 186 (7.0625%, $600,000), together 50.1%; then Texas 109, Georgia 61, Maryland 29, Pennsylvania 28, Ohio 24 and Tennessee 22. Ohio’s 24 loans have a median rate of 7.625% and Tennessee’s 22 of 7.6875%, small groups worth a question rather than a conclusion. See our Florida and California DSCR pages.

Who buys. 925 of the 980 were sold within the year to purchaser type 71 (the category that includes credit unions, mortgage companies and finance companies) and 55 were not sold in the year. HMDA does not name the buyer, so we cannot tie these loans to Santander. Prepayment penalties. HMDA does not report a prepayment term for business-purpose loans (it is blank on all 982), so the file cannot show how ClearEdge’s DSCR loans are penalized. The 276 investor loans not flagged business purpose (all with a debt-to-income ratio) do report one: 119 at 12 months, 59 at 36, 13 at 24 and 1 at 60, with 84 none.

For the national picture see DSCR lenders ranked by loans and, for a similar broker-channel lender read the same way, Ridge Lending Group.

Complaints, orders and what we could not check

CFPB. On November 5, 2026 we searched the CFPB Consumer Complaint Database (18,935,791 records) for “clearedge,” “clear edge lending” and “clearedge lending llc” in all fields and got 0 each time. That is a weak signal for a lender that only deals with brokers: the database is built from consumer complaints about consumer products, and a business-purpose borrower rarely files there. Enforcement and courts. A web search for the name together with “lawsuit,” “consent order” and “complaints” found nothing naming ClearEdge; the results about a CFPB order concern ClearPath Lending, a different company. We did not read state regulators’ order pages or court dockets. Compare with the approach in is this DSCR lender legit?.

Not established. (1) NMLS Consumer Access and the state licences, which we did not read; (2) who closed each of the 38 loans; (3) the price list and matrix, which the company publishes as a download for brokers that we did not use; (4) any customer review, because there are none in a broker-only channel; (5) how ClearEdge funds and sells its loans beyond what the filings show.

What a reader can do with this

• Ask your broker which lender will fund the loan and get its legal name and NMLS number in writing. For ClearEdge it should read ClearEdge Lending LLC, NMLS 1924815; check it yourself on NMLS Consumer Access.
• Use the tape as a cross-check for a quote, not a quote. A 30-year DSCR rate from 6.875% to 7.5% matches the middle of the 13 loans; 8.125% and up matched scores of 700 or lower and coverage near 1.0 in that sample.
• Know your coverage ratio before you apply. Row 6 closed at 0.83 and row 9 at 1.00, so sub-1.0 coverage exists in this program, but advertised floors are not promises. Ask what the lender needs to see for your property.
• Ask for the full cost in writing: points, origination and underwriting fees, appraisal, the prepayment penalty and its length, and whether the loan is interest-only. HMDA has none of these for business-purpose loans.
• Expect documents to be checked. In this file 25 findings were cured or cleared before grading, such as an insurance date and a missing consent; a clean file closes faster.
• Compare at least two other lenders the same day. See the best DSCR loan lender.

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

FAQ

Sources, read November 5, 2026: Form ABS-15G filings and Exhibits 99.1 of Santander Bank, N.A. (CIK 0002058366) filed March 7, May 5, June 6, July 29, September 17 and December 31, 2025 and January 28, May 8 and June 18, 2026 (accessions 0001104659-25-021662, -25-044455, -25-057206, -25-071776, -25-090885, -25-125482, -26-007507, -26-057748 and -26-075565); the FFIEC HMDA 2025 filer list and loan-level file, tabulated by us; the ClearEdge Lending home, Investor Connect and About pages; and the CFPB Consumer Complaint Database search API. NMLS Consumer Access, state regulator order pages and court dockets were not read.