MDE Pro is a single embeddable tool that gives your website visitors a personalized mortgage readiness check in about 20 seconds, using eight quick questions about income, debts, credit, and down payment. There’s no signup, no credit pull, and nothing stored, every calculation runs in the borrower’s browser. Your name, photo, and NMLS number stay visible in the header from the first question through the final result, not just at the end. Once they finish, they continue straight into your existing application system, Encompass, Floify, LendingPad, or wherever you already send applicants.
MDE Pro doesn’t stop at a yes or no. The same eight answers run through two independent calculations: a Readiness Score out of 100, and an Approval Likelihood percentage. One starts at 100 and subtracts for every weak spot, the way a file review flags problems one at a time. The other averages four weighted factors, the way an underwriting checklist scores several things at once. This page walks through exactly how each one works, so you know what’s behind the numbers before you put your name and license on the result.
This page covers MDE Pro, the $29 to $39/month bridge tool that routes a borrower straight into your existing application system. If you’re looking at the one-time, lead-capturing Decision Engine instead, that’s a separate product with its own setup, and the scoring details below are specific to MDE Pro.
A real MDE Pro result: 92/100 Readiness Score on the left, 88% Approval Likelihood and four factor bars on the right.
What the Readiness Score Measures
The Readiness Score starts at 100 and works downward. Four factors drive the deductions, debt-to-income ratio and monthly income remaining after the housing payment and other debts, both calculated from what the borrower enters, plus credit score range and down payment size, entered directly. Each one subtracts points based on how far it sits from what a lender would consider comfortable. Nothing earns bonus points back. A strong profile simply avoids deductions.
The score lands in one of three bands, and the band is what actually gets shown to the borrower:
| Score | Label shown | What it signals |
|---|---|---|
| 75-98 | Strong Position | Fundamentals look solid across the board |
| 50-74 | Nearly Ready | A few specific improvements would make a real difference |
| Below 50 | Needs Preparation | Build a stronger financial foundation before applying |
Debt-to-income carries the heaviest weight in this score by a wide margin, and the deductions get steeper as DTI climbs, not linear. A DTI under 36% costs nothing. Cross 36% and it’s an 8-point deduction. Cross 40%, 14 points. Cross 43%, 22 points. The steepest deductions kick in past 50%. That 43% line isn’t a number OurNetHelps picked, it reflects the debt-to-income ceiling used for years under the original CFPB Qualified Mortgage rule, and it remains a widely used underwriting benchmark today even though the current CFPB General QM definition has since shifted to a pricing-based standard rather than a hard DTI cap. The score reflects that legacy with hard ceilings: once back-end DTI passes 43%, the Readiness Score can’t exceed 62, no matter how good the borrower’s credit or down payment are. Past 50% DTI, it caps at 48. That’s deliberate. A perfect credit score doesn’t offset a heavily strained debt load, and the score shouldn’t imply otherwise.
What Approval Likelihood Measures
Approval Likelihood is a separate calculation built from the same four inputs, but weighted differently and shown differently. Instead of one running deduction, each factor gets its own score out of 100, and those four scores are combined using fixed weights: DTI at 40%, credit score at 30%, down payment at 20%, and remaining cash flow at 10%. The borrower sees all four bars on the results page, not just the final percentage, so the weighting isn’t hidden behind a single number.
The single biggest factor in most real underwriting decisions, so it carries the most weight here too.
Modeled on the general shape of risk-based pricing bands (760+/720-759/680-719/640-679/below-640), simplified for a fast, borrower-facing tool.
20% or more scores highest. VA and USDA loans score at full marks regardless, since $0 down is the program norm.
What’s left every month after the full housing payment and existing debts are paid.
The percentage shown is deliberately never allowed to reach 100%, even for a flawless profile. The highest a display can ever show, under any combination of inputs, is 94%. That ceiling exists on purpose. No embedded tool should ever suggest a guaranteed outcome, and capping the display keeps the number honest about what it actually is: a likelihood estimate, not a decision.
Why There Are Two Numbers Instead of One
The short version: the Readiness Score answers “how solid is this borrower’s overall financial position,” and Approval Likelihood answers “how do the specific factors a lender checks line up.” They’re related, since both draw from the same four inputs, but they’re not built to move in lockstep.
| Readiness Score | Approval Likelihood | |
|---|---|---|
| What it answers | How strong is this borrower’s overall position | How favorably do the specific lending factors line up |
| How it’s built | Starts at 100, subtracts for weak spots | Averages four weighted factor scores |
| What moves it most | DTI, with hard caps past 43% and 50% | DTI still leads, but credit and down payment carry more relative weight |
| Shown as | A single number, 10-98 | A percentage, with the four factor bars visible underneath |
Why Not Just Show Approval Likelihood?
Because a decent likelihood percentage and a genuinely strong financial position aren’t always the same thing. Approval Likelihood is a smooth weighted average, so a weak factor gets diluted by the other three instead of standing out on its own. The Readiness Score is built differently on purpose: it applies hard caps the moment DTI crosses specific lines, regardless of how strong everything else looks. That means a borrower can clear a respectable Approval Likelihood while the Readiness Score is still flagging that their debt load needs attention before they apply. Showing only the percentage would hide exactly the kind of gap a broker needs to see.
$350,000 home, 30-year term at the tool’s 6.8% default rate, 20% down, 760+ credit, $110,000 household income, $300 in monthly debts. Back-end DTI works out to about 28%, well under every threshold. Readiness Score: 98 (Strong Position). Approval Likelihood: 94% (Very Likely). Nothing here drags either number down, so both land near the top.
Same $350,000 home, rate, and term, but 15% down instead of 20%, the same 760+ credit, $80,000 household income, $400 in monthly debts. Back-end DTI lands at about 44%, just over the tool’s 43% DTI benchmark. Readiness Score: 62 (Nearly Ready), pulled down hard by the DTI cap that triggers past 43%, regardless of the strong credit. Approval Likelihood: 70% (Nearly Ready), softer because the weighted average lets the excellent credit and reasonable down payment partly offset the weak DTI factor. Both numbers land in the same tier here, but the 8-point gap and the different reasons behind each number are exactly why relying on just one of them would tell an incomplete story.
Where the Thresholds Actually Come From
None of the numbers behind either score were invented for this tool. The 43% DTI figure reflects the debt-to-income ceiling used for years under the original CFPB Qualified Mortgage rule, and remains a common underwriting benchmark even after the current CFPB General QM definition moved to a pricing-based standard. The credit tiers are modeled on the general shape of the risk-based pricing bands Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac use, simplified into five ranges rather than their full loan-level pricing grid. A broker looking at these bands should recognize the underlying logic immediately, even if the exact breakpoints are simplified for a fast, borrower-facing tool rather than a full underwriting matrix. That’s also why the tool carries this disclaimer on every result:
Uses standard mortgage affordability formulas aligned with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac front-end and back-end DTI guidelines. This is an educational readiness assessment only. Not a lending decision, pre-qualification, or pre-approval. Actual rates, approvals, and payments vary by lender, credit profile, and market conditions. Consult a licensed mortgage professional before making any purchasing decisions.
What This Means When You’re the One Whose Name Is On It
Your name, photo, and NMLS number are visible from the very first question, not something that only shows up once a score is calculated. That means the honesty of the scoring logic isn’t an abstract concern, it’s directly tied to your reputation. A few things worth knowing on that front:
Nothing in the tool tells a borrower they’re approved. The highest likelihood shown still caps below 100%.
Every calculation runs in the borrower’s own browser. Nothing is sent to or held on OurNetHelps’ servers.
DTI, credit, down payment, and cash flow are all shown as separate bars, not hidden inside one opaque number.
The educational-only language shown above appears on every single result, not just the strong ones.
Watch Both Numbers Calculate Live
Run through the demo yourself and see exactly how the Readiness Score and Approval Likelihood are built from the same eight answers.
Try the MDE Pro DemoTwo numbers, one job each: the score tells you where things stand, the percentage tells you how the specific factors weigh in. Neither one replaces an actual underwriter.
