What do people search for about mortgages and home equity?
These are the highest-volume mortgage and home equity terms among the searches we track, measured between October 2025 and September 2026, the ones moving fastest, and the questions people asked. Every number here is an average monthly search volume or a change in searches. None of it is a rate, and no lender is ranked.
The terms people search for most
Ranked by average monthly searches on Google in the United States, over October 2025 to September 2026. This is the top of the mortgage and home equity set we track, not every search made: 80 terms were submitted to Google, 67 came back, and 14 were merged into a neighbour. Searches that name a lender or a servicer, and searches about another kind of borrowing, are left out. Volumes are Google's own rounded buckets, so a figure is the middle of a range rather than an exact count, and two terms can share one.
Where two terms carry the same volume, home equity comes first: it is most of what our clients buy, and a tie says nothing about which term matters more. The two movement columns are changes in searches, not in price or rate: the first compares the most recent published month with the month three before it, the second compares the last three months with the three before those.
| # | Search term | Average monthly searches | Last month vs 3 months before | Last 3 months vs the 3 before |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | loan calculator | 673,000 | +21.5% | -6.0% |
| 2 | mortgage rates | 550,000 | +82.7% | +2.9% |
| 3 | current mortgage rates | 301,000 | 0.0% | -12.2% |
| 4 | mortgage calculator payment | 165,000 | 0.0% | -6.8% |
| 5 | refinance rates | 165,000 | +123.9% | -10.9% |
| 6 | interest rates | 165,000 | +173.6% | +27.1% |
| 7 | payment calculator | 135,000 | 0.0% | -6.9% |
| 8 | interest calculator | 135,000 | -18.5% | -18.3% |
| 9 | home equity loan | 90,500 | 0.0% | +6.9% |
| 10 | heloc rates | 90,500 | 0.0% | -6.5% |
| 11 | home equity line of credit rates | 90,500 | 0.0% | -6.5% |
| 12 | heloc | 90,500 | +21.5% | +6.3% |
| 13 | rates home equity loan | 74,000 | 0.0% | -6.5% |
| 14 | heloc loan | 60,500 | +22.3% | +7.4% |
| 15 | dscr loans | 60,500 | 0.0% | +7.4% |
| 16 | today mortgage rates | 49,500 | +22.2% | -15.9% |
| 17 | mortgage loan calculator | 49,500 | -18.3% | -19.4% |
| 18 | va home loan | 40,500 | -18.3% | -6.5% |
| 19 | refinance calculator | 40,500 | -33.2% | -17.3% |
| 20 | mortgage rates calculator | 33,100 | +22.1% | -11.7% |
| 21 | interest rates mortgage | 33,100 | +82.4% | +11.1% |
| 22 | fha loan rates | 33,100 | 0.0% | -5.3% |
| 23 | cash out on refinance | 22,200 | +49.7% | +49.5% |
| 24 | fha home loan | 22,200 | 0.0% | -46.3% |
| 25 | home mortgage calculator | 22,200 | -18.5% | -12.6% |
| 26 | house mortgage payment calculator | 22,200 | -18.5% | -12.6% |
| 27 | mortgage refinance | 14,800 | +83.3% | +24.6% |
| 28 | what is home equity loan | 12,100 | +22.3% | 0.0% |
| 29 | cash out refinance calculator | 12,100 | -18.2% | -18.2% |
| 30 | fha mortgage | 12,100 | +51.7% | -24.4% |
| 31 | what is home equity | 9,900 | +22.2% | 0.0% |
| 32 | what is heloc | 9,900 | +22.2% | +6.5% |
| 33 | what is home equity line of credit | 8,100 | 0.0% | -14.3% |
| 34 | what is fha loan | 8,100 | 0.0% | -6.9% |
| 35 | dscr loan meaning | 8,100 | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 36 | mortgage interest calculator | 8,100 | +22.2% | -13.4% |
| 37 | what is cash out refinance | 6,600 | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 38 | second mortgage rates | 6,600 | 0.0% | -12.9% |
| 39 | what is a dscr loan | 6,600 | +22.7% | +15.2% |
| 40 | home refinance | 6,600 | +50.0% | +14.5% |
| 41 | refinance loan | 5,400 | +22.2% | +7.4% |
| 42 | what is fha | 5,400 | +22.2% | +6.9% |
| 43 | house mortgage calculator | 5,400 | 0.0% | -6.9% |
| 44 | estimate mortgage payment | 5,400 | -18.5% | -12.3% |
| 45 | cash out refinance rates | 4,400 | 0.0% | -19.4% |
| 46 | best home equity line of credit | 3,600 | 0.0% | -12.9% |
| 47 | what is reverse mortgage | 3,600 | +22.2% | -6.5% |
| 48 | average mortgage payment | 3,600 | 0.0% | -6.5% |
| 49 | fha mortgage loan | 3,600 | -84.8% | -71.4% |
| 50 | dscr loan rates | 3,600 | +24.1% | -6.9% |
Google Ads Keyword Planner, United States, English. Volumes rounded as Google reports them.
What is moving
The fastest risers and the steepest fallers among those terms, measured the same way. A riser is people searching more; it is not a forecast of demand for a loan, and a faller is not a signal that a product is fading.
| Search term | Average monthly searches | Last month vs 3 months before |
|---|---|---|
| interest rates | 165,000 | +173.6% |
| refinance rates | 165,000 | +123.9% |
| mortgage refinance | 14,800 | +83.3% |
| mortgage rates | 550,000 | +82.7% |
| interest rates mortgage | 33,100 | +82.4% |
| Search term | Average monthly searches | Last month vs 3 months before |
|---|---|---|
| fha mortgage loan | 3,600 | -84.8% |
| refinance calculator | 40,500 | -33.2% |
| interest calculator | 135,000 | -18.5% |
| home mortgage calculator | 22,200 | -18.5% |
| house mortgage payment calculator | 22,200 | -18.5% |
What people are asking
The question-shaped searches people typed most, and the FreeRateUpdate page that answers each one where we have one. A question with no page here is one we have not written yet, and it is listed rather than dropped.
- what is home equity loan — 12,100 average monthly searches
- what is home equity — 9,900 average monthly searches
- what is heloc — 9,900 average monthly searches
- what is home equity line of credit — 8,100 average monthly searches
- what is fha loan — 8,100 average monthly searches
- what is cash out refinance — 6,600 average monthly searches
- what is a dscr loan — 6,600 average monthly searches
- what is fha — 5,400 average monthly searches
- what is reverse mortgage — 3,600 average monthly searches
- what is dscr — 2,900 average monthly searches
- what is dscr loan — 1,900 average monthly searches
- what is second mortgage — 320 average monthly searches
Questions on the rise
Question-shaped searches that rose on Google Trends over the last 90 days, to 31 October 2026, which is a separate observation from the volume months above, kept to the products we write about. Trends reports relative interest rather than how many people searched, so no figure from it appears on this page: the question is the point, and it links to the page that answers it where we have one.
Where these figures come from
| Volumes | Google Ads Keyword Planner, average monthly searches, rounded |
|---|---|
| Months covered | October 2025 to September 2026 |
| Network | Google Search, United States, English |
| Terms chosen with | Google Trends, relative interest only, never shown as counts |
| Ranking and movement | FreeRateUpdate, from the two sources above; no estimate is added and none is modelled |
| Edition | October 31, 2026 |
| What is not here | rates, prices, eligibility, and any lender described as best |
Google publishes average monthly searches in rounded buckets. The terms on this page were chosen from Google Trends interest, which is relative and never a count, so no Trends figure appears as a number here. October 2026 is not yet published, so the latest complete month is September 2026.
A search that names a lender or a servicer is left out of this edition rather than ranked, so no company is named, ranked, recommended or compared on this page.
This page is one edition. When a new edition is published it gets its own date, and the page and its sitemap entry move together; the Dataset description is machine-readable (schema.org Dataset).