Fairway Home Mortgage Review 2025
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- 50+ mortgage lenders reviewed and rated by our team of experts.
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Our Take
3.0
Fairway Home Mortgage stands out for its volume of FHA loans, bonus offerings like title services, insurance quotes and utility transfers, as well as harder-to-find products like physician loans. However, the lender was penalized for discriminatory lending practices in 2024. Most likely to appeal to borrowers looking for a one-stop shop.
Pros
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Services go beyond mortgages, including title services and getting insurance quotes.
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Works with local programs for down payment assistance.
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Offers specialty loans that are rare among competitors.
Cons
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Has been penalized for redlining.
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Mortgage rates aren’t posted online.
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Average origination fees are on the high end, according to the latest federal data.
Full Review
At a glance: Fairway Home Mortgage options
Fairway Home Mortgage is a nonbank lender based in Madison, Wisconsin. Fairway issues mortgages in all 50 states and Washington, D.C.
In addition to conventional mortgages and government-backed loans, Fairway Home Mortgage also offers less common products like renovation loans, physician loans and reverse mortgages.
🏠 Common mortgages
Conventional loans (fixed and adjustable)
Rate-and-term refinancing
Jumbo loans
FHA loans
VA loans
🔑 Specialty loans
Renovation loans
FHA 203(k)
USDA loans
Reverse mortgages
Physician loans
💵 Home equity • HELOCs • Cash-out refinancing
» MORE: How to choose a mortgage lender
Fairway Home Mortgage special offers and discounts
Fairway Home Mortgage offers a number of pathways to make homeownership more accessible to customers.
Works with state and local down payment assistance programs.
Backs an initiative to support veteran home buyers.
What does Fairway Home Mortgage specialize in?
A lender’s experience with your loan type can make a big difference. We looked at the latest federal data to find the types of mortgages Fairway handles most often.
While conventional loans make up the bulk of Fairway’s home purchase business, it’s also a major FHA lender. FHA loans accounted for nearly a quarter of Fairway’s purchase originations last year.
How we score Fairway Home Mortgage
Each year, NerdWallet writers and editors dig into the latest data and independent research on mortgage lending. Then, we rate lenders based on categories that matter most to mortgage borrowers.
Fairway has a NerdWallet home loans rating of three stars overall. Here’s a breakdown of this year’s score.
Category | Star rating |
|---|---|
Average mortgage rates and fees | |
Mortgage rate transparency | |
Variety of loan types | |
Customer experience | |
Overall star rating |
Ah, so you’re the “read the fine print” type? We got you. Here’s how our scoring rubric works.
Average mortgage rates and fees (30%)
We review federal data (as reported by the lenders) and analyze mortgage lenders’ average fees and interest rates across all loan types. Lenders with the lowest average costs get the highest star ratings. Keep in mind: Loans that are easier to qualify for, like FHA loans, usually have higher rates and fees because lenders see them as a higher risk. Pro tip: Paying some fees upfront can sometimes lower your interest rate.
Mortgage rate transparency (25%)
We look at how easy it is to compare mortgage rates online. Lenders get higher transparency ratings if they show sample rates on their website. (Not all lenders do!) The best ratings go to lenders that offer interactive tools that let you customize a rate quote on your own.
Variety of loan types (25%)
There’s no one-size-fits-all mortgage. Lenders earn top ratings in this category when they offer a large variety of mortgage types. The more variety, the higher their score. A lender earns points for purchase and refinance; fixed and adjustable rates; FHA, VA or USDA loans; renovation or construction loans; and home equity loans or HELOCs.
Customer experience (20%)
How easy is it to work with this lender? Top-rated lenders offer helpful features like online applications, multiple ways to get support, a user-friendly mobile app and clear updates about the loan closing timeline.
Fairway Home Mortgage penalties
We deducted points from Fairway due to a joint legal complaint from the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) that alleged unlawful discrimination.
Fairway Home Mortgage reputation and customer experience
NerdWallet’s star ratings look at objective factors like rates, fees and loan options. To give you a sense of what the borrower experience is really like, we pulled the latest customer satisfaction scores from J.D. Power and Zillow and we contacted the lender’s customer support.
2024 J.D. Power U.S. Mortgage Origination Satisfaction Study
746
out of 1,000
Above-average satisfaction score: average = 727.
Mortgage origination covers the application through closing.
Zillow Mortgage Lender Customer Rating
4.95
out of 5
Excellent rating as of the date of publication.
Rating reflects more than 37,000 customer reviews.
Potential concerns about Fairway Home Mortgage
Fairway’s recent legal settlement met our criteria to impact the lender’s NerdWallet star rating. The CFPB and DOJ claimed that Fairway illegally redlined Black neighborhoods in Birmingham, Alabama.
Redlining is the practice of restricting or denying loans to qualified borrowers based on location. Even though redlining was outlawed by 1968's Fair Housing Act, the effects are still seen today, for example, in lower levels of Black homeownership.
The CFPB and DOJ complaint against Fairway Home Mortgage noted that the lender made many fewer loans in majority-Black neighborhoods than its peers. Additionally, all Birmingham Fairway branches were in majority-white neighborhoods, with marketing targeting these areas even though the lender claimed to serve the entire metro area.
Per the settlement, which was approved by the court for the Northern District of Alabama on December 3, 2024, Fairway paid $1.9 million to the CFPB victims' fund, and is providing $7 million to create a loan subsidy program for home purchases, refinances and renovations in majority-Black neighborhoods.
A further $1 million was ordered for outreach counseling within majority-Black neighborhoods, as well as for partnerships with organizations that provide assistance to homeowners in financial distress.
When shopping for a mortgage lender, do an online search to see if the company is in the news, and why.
🚩 The Nerdy details: How penalties work
Our writers research recent headlines and highlight any red flags here. Not all concerns affect a lender’s star rating — only actions that directly harmed consumers. A lender loses points when its mortgage business was the subject of regulatory action and fined $1 million or more. The scoring penalty remains for up to one year after the fine was paid.
Fairway Home Mortgage customer service options
Here’s how you can get in touch with Fairway.
Ways to reach Fairway
Physical branches . . . . . . ✅ Phone support . . . . . . . . . ✅ Mobile app . . . . . . . . . . . . ✅ Online chat (bot) . . . . . . . 🚫 Online chat (human) . . . . 🚫
🤓 Our Nerds say... Fairway agents were helpful over the phone
Taylor Getler, lead writer, mortgages
When we called Fairway’s customer support, we navigated a phone tree and were put on a brief hold before connecting with a US-based agent. This agent was able to answer all of our questions. For borrowers who prefer in-person assistance, branches are available in every state and Washington, D.C. with the exception of Alaska and West Virginia.
» MORE: How to apply for a mortgage
Alternatives to Fairway Home Mortgage
Borrowers who want a lender with a similar FHA specialization may be interested in Freedom Mortgage, which also has better average interest rates than Fairway. If you like Fairway’s assistance with insurance and title services, Better offers these and more.
For fans of Fairway’s focus on down payment grants, Rocket Mortgage offers a proprietary mortgage with just 1% down — and it won NerdWallet’s awards for Best Lender for First-Time Home Buyers in 2025.
More from NerdWallet
NerdWallet’s overall ratings for mortgage lenders are evaluated based on four major categories: average mortgage rates and origination fees, rate transparency to consumers, variety of loan types (purchase, refinance, fixed and adjustable, for example) and customer experience. Among the factors we consider in these categories are: options to apply for home loans online, typical time to close, mobile app experience, level of detail about mortgage rates on lender websites, and NerdWallet’s own analysis of the rates and fees lenders reported in the latest available Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data. These and other items inform detailed rubrics, which generate ratings from 1 star (poor) to 5 stars (excellent). Read more about how we rate mortgage lenders here.
