A system and method for processing applications for loans secured by real estate, wherein an applicant is prompted for one or more parameters of a requested loan and for data regarding the applicant, data regarding the applicant' s credit is accessed based on data provided by the applicant, predetermined rules are applied to the received data, it is automatically determined whether to approve the loan based on the results of the application of the predetermined rules to the received data, if the loan is approved, one or more terms of the loan are automatically determined based on the results of the application of the predetermined rules to the received data, and the applicant is informed whether the loan was approved and one or more terms of the loan, if approved.