According to a new study, home loan lenders who guide borrowers through the mortgage process earn the best reviews. However, customer satisfaction has declined overall in the past year, and stubbornly high mortgage rates may partly be to blame.

J.D. Power has released a new list of mortgage lenders ranked by customer satisfaction. The 2024 Mortgage Origination Satisfaction Study saw a shake-up of top lenders, with 2023's highest-rated pair of lenders, Fairway Independent Mortgage Corporation and Rocket Mortgage, falling out of the top five.

Prosperity Home Mortgage rose from number four to the top position in the new study.

Bruce Gehrke, senior director of wealth and lending intelligence at J.D. Power, said that homebuyers have faced higher costs and unyielding interest rates. Mortgage lenders who work to understand borrowers' challenges earn higher satisfaction grades.

"Consistently, we're seeing that lenders that play an active advisory role in helping their clients navigate the current market are earning significantly higher customer satisfaction, loyalty, and advocacy scores than those that are treating mortgage lending as a transactional process," Gehrke said in a release.

On a 1,000-point scale, ranked lenders averaged a score of 727 this year, down three points from 2023. J.D. Power said that smaller staffing levels might have contributed to a decline in customer service.

Read more: The best mortgage lenders right now

The study pinpoints areas where consumers are disappointed most. J.D. Power said that in the 2024 analysis, the factors with the most significant year-over-year declines in customer satisfaction were:

• Digital services

• Communication

• Loan offering "met my needs"

When a representative is involved in the loan application process, overall satisfaction rises 40 points, the study said.

The lenders ranking in the top five of the J.D. Power survey were:

1. Prosperity Home Mortgage, with a score of 772

2. Movement Mortgage, 761

3. Bank of America, 760

4. Citi Mortgage, 759

5. AmeriSave Mortgage, 758

Two highly rated lenders that did not meet the criteria to be ranked in the study were Veterans United (793) and Navy Federal Credit Union (748).

The Mortgage Origination Study is based on 7,534 surveys of borrowers who got a new mortgage or refinanced within the past 12 months.

Hal Bundrick is a senior writer covering mortgages for Yahoo Finance.

Click here for real estate and housing market news, reports, and analysis to inform your investing decisions

Read the latest financial and business news from Yahoo Finance