Relevance

Data is chosen with consumer borrowers in mind. Data fields are limited to metrics that inform decision-making and risk-mitigation, as well as contact information. Mortgage rate data is updated automatically by the data service provider.

Collection

All data is continually collected from Optimal Blue by human agents. The process can involve manually extracting data from disparate data sources.

Accuracy

Accuracy is reinforced by dual-authentication and continual updating of evolutionary figures, in this case interest rates that evolve over time.

Completeness

The data is collected from an Excel file in aggregate form and does not require completion. However, some metrics require adjustment to reflect nuances across multi-dimensional figures, such as x-year rates per FICO score.

Recency

The data is updated continually to include new data as it’s made available from Optimal Blue either through its website or via the St. Louis Federal Reserve interface..

Cleaning

Because Optimal Blue’s data is pre-cleaned and provided as-is, cleaning is not necessary for the dataset.

Privacy

The dataset is hosted natively offline and on hard drives inaccessible via internet channels after download from Optimal Blue.

Validation

Outliers do not impact raw data, only analysis. We use a conservative framework that eliminates outliers with a material impact on analytical metrics helpful to consumers. There are no aggregation weaknesses in the dataset as of publishing. We adjust all calculations to present the most accurate reality to consumers.