Conventional wood-frame shear walls with and without hold-down devices are often used in low-rise wood frame buildings across North America. For mid-rise buildings, especially those located in high seismic zones, stronger shear walls with strong hold-down systems comprising continuous steel rods are employed to manage overturning moments. Although the performance of low-rise wood buildings under seismic loads is well understood, research on structural performance and failure mechanisms of mid-rise buildings with strong wood-frame shear walls is still limited. Due to the high cost of conducting experimental research on a mid-rise building, this paper is aimed to explore finite element (FE) models for better understanding of the behaviour of stronger wood-frame shear walls under gravity and lateral loads. To elucidate the performance of strong shear walls and validating the accuracy of the developed models, a one-story strong wood-frame shear wall with different hold-down systems is modelled in two commercial finite element software (i.e. ABAQUS and SAP2000) under lateral loading. To compare numerical models and determine the limitations of each model, capacity curve of the strong walls under monotonic load are predicted. Unlike most FE models in which modelling parameters are calibrated, real connection and material properties are used as input parameters. Results show a good agreement between the models’ predictions and existing experimental results in terms of wall deflection and capacity curve. Some limitations in capturing the pinching effects are noted using the same input parameters for connections. Hence, further research on predicting the cyclic response of strong shear walls is suggested.