FinFam - Collaborative Financial Planning

FinFam Open main menu Log in Sign Up ← Back to Blog Credit Union Mortgages: Updated Daily @mahmoud • December 3, 2025 • mortgages credit unions rates tools Buying a home or refinancing a mortgage is tough enough without confusing ads from banks and big lenders.
Credit unions can offer competitive rates compared to big banks because they’re member-owned, non-profit institutions.
They focus on serving their members, not maximizing profits for shareholders. But without big budgets and marketing departments, credit union rates aren’t always easy to find or compare.
That’s why we built a daily-updated comparison of mortgage rates from over 120 credit unions across the United States. Credit Union Mortgage Rates Last updated: December 3, 2025 30-Year Fixed
Updating... Best Rate (APR) 5.49% -74 bps vs. National Avg Distribution 5.49% - 6.28% Best 5.49% Good 5.65% Median 6.03% Institutions 118 15-Year Fixed
Updating... Best Rate (APR) 4.98% -53 bps vs. Nat'l Avg -51 bps vs. 30Y Distribution 4.98% - 6.20% Best 4.98% Good 5.13% Median 5.35% Institutions 119 Loading rate comparison table... Estimated monthly payment based on purchasing $400,000 home with 20% down, $567/mo taxes and insurance, and 1.65% closing costs. Click to customize Note: These rates are informational and not a commitment to lend. FinFam has no
institutional affiliation and does not receive any referral fees. Why build this dashboard? When we bought our home, the big bank I’d been using for years tried to sell me on a mortgage with 7% APR.
Turns out a local credit union was offering 5.5% for the exact same mortgage. What surprised me most wasn’t that there were cheaper options, but that two mortgages can be exactly the same product, just with different packaging. In the USA, the government buys almost all mortgages, requiring them to be standardized. So why the price difference?
As explored in this Bloomberg Odd Lots episode about credit card rates, higher rates are mostly to pay for advertising and marketing.
Big banks have marketing departments that non-profit credit unions don’t have. That “exclusive” inbox offer from Chase or Wells Fargo isn’t generosity. It’s a bet that you won’t shop around.
My goal with this tool is simple: help people realize they have options and potentially save thousands of dollars a year. IMHO, a better world might have a single non-profit entity offering a standard rate to everyone.
This would remove a layer of complexity and allow the housing market to operate more efficiently. In the meantime, bigger, for-profit brokers and lenders do have a couple advantages over smaller ones. May close loans faster, which matters in competitive markets like NYC/SF. Non-issue for refinancing. Might have better apps and servicing UX. They also routinely sell your mortgage to other servicers anyway, so that servicing UX is not guaranteed. Not all CUs will beat big bank rates, either. Use the dashboard and benchmarks to find the right lender. How the dashboard works It’s a little involved! 😅 Rates are collected throughout the day from the websites of approximately 120 credit unions. National benchmarks come from the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank, aka FRED: 30-Year Fixed benchmark (15Y). These update weekly. Credit union eligibility data is manually curated from individual institution websites. Some rates (around a dozen) are hidden by default because they’re statistical outliers: likely errors or ultra-specialized products.
Toggle “Show outliers” in the filters if you want to see them anyway. All rates are for "conforming" loans. For 2025, the limits are $806,500 (standard) or up to $1,209,750 (high-cost areas like parts of CA, NY, WA, HI).
Check the calculator’s “High-Cost Area” option if relevant, or see Fannie Mae’s county lookup. Found an error? Email blog@finfam.app. Next Steps: Make Decisions, Get Quotes Our dashboard can only take you so far.
Your actual rate depends on: credit score, down payment (20%+ is ideal), property type (primary residence gets best rates), and whether you pay points for a lower rate (always compare APR). Next step: Get quotes from multiple lenders by using the rate table above to contact institutions. Protip: Before submitting to any credit checks, protect your privacy with optoutprescreen.com, another free and regulated service I wish I’d known about sooner. Still not sure about buying or refinancing? Check out these interactive guides: Should I refinance my mortgage or invest in the market? Rent vs Buy calculator FinFam is built around collaborative financial planning, including community-authored, spreadsheet-powered guides, like those above.
Read more in our docs. Questions or Feedback? Have questions about these rates or suggestions for improving this tool? Reach out to us at blog@finfam.app. Don’t see your favorite CU here? As long as it has a website with a public rates page and clear eligibility requirements, we’d be happy to add it! Disclaimers These rates are informational only and don’t represent rate locks.
Your actual rate will vary.
Contact lenders with the links in the rate table to get your personalized quotes.
FinFam has no institutional affiliation and receives no referral fees, nor provides any guarantees. Shoutout /r/dataisbeautiful for the encouragement.
And big thanks to Asheesh Laroia for his guidance on the matter of mortgages.
See his spreadsheet-friendly take on the data. Enjoyed this post? Subscribe for more insights on financial planning. Enter your email Subscribe FinFam is on a mission to help people navigate financial decisions together through
collaborative planning, expert guidance, and AI assistance. Q&A Board Partners FAQ Docs About Blog LinkedIn Instagram Reddit "The Everything App" YouTube
Home
Login Terms of UsePrivacy Policy Made with ♥ in the USA © 2025

FinFam’s daily-updated mortgage rate comparison dashboard provides a valuable resource for consumers seeking competitive rates, primarily by highlighting the significant differences between credit unions and larger banks. The tool compiles data from approximately 120 credit unions across the United States, offering a benchmark against the national average, which is tracked weekly by the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank’s FRED database. The core functionality centers on comparing 30-year and 15-year fixed rates, presenting distributions that showcase the range of available rates—ranging from 5.49% to 6.28% for the 30-year fixed. The data, collected and curated daily, is intended to illuminate how marketing expenses, a key driver of rates at larger institutions, do not play a comparable role within the non-profit structure of credit unions.

The dashboard incorporates a mortgage calculator, allowing users to estimate monthly payments based on a hypothetical $400,000 home purchase, taking into account factors such as down payment, property taxes, insurance, and closing costs. Importantly, the tool acknowledges that rates are purely informational and do not constitute rate locks, stressing the influence of individual borrower factors—credit score, down payment size (with 20%+ being favored), property type, and the decision to pay points for a lower rate. The data's presentation includes a deliberate subset of rates ("outliers") which are statistically unusual and are usually hidden by default, requiring the user to manually toggle "Show outliers" in the filter. These outlier rates represent potential errors or specialized products.

The tool’s usefulness is further enhanced by its contextualization of mortgage rates within the broader landscape of financial planning. FinFam emphasizes that a significant portion of the cost difference between banks and credit unions stems from marketing and advertising spending, a feature absent in the non-profit structures of credit unions. The dashboard complements this by offering links to interactive guides, such as “Should I refinance my mortgage or invest in the market?” and “Rent vs Buy calculator,” and encourages users to proactively protect their privacy by utilizing optoutprescreen.com.

The development of the dashboard was spurred by a personal experience—the author’s realization that a local credit union offered a substantially lower mortgage rate than a large bank, despite offering a comparable product. Furthermore, FinFam highlights the influence of standardized, government-backed mortgages, which are a key factor driving the consistent rates seen across the market. The tool’s value extends beyond just comparing rates; it aims to empower consumers with knowledge and encourage a comparative approach to financing decisions. The development also acknowledges the contributions of external experts, such as Asheesh Laroia's spreadsheet-friendly data analysis.