Earlier this week the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC) announced the availability of data on mortgage lending transactions at 7,400 U.S. financial institutions covered by the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA). The HMDA data covers 2012 lending activity — applications, originations, purchases and sales of loans, denials, and other actions related to applications.
The data include disclosure statements for each financial institution, aggregate data for each metropolitan statistical area (MSA), nationwide summary statistics regarding lending patterns, and Loan/Application Registers (LARs) for each financial institution (LARs are modified to protect borrower privacy). The FFIEC prepares and distributes this information on behalf of its member agencies.
For 2012, the number of reporting institutions of 7,400 fell 3 percent from the number in 2011, continuing a downward trend since 2006 when HMDA coverage included just over 8,900 lenders. The decline reflects mergers, acquisitions, and the failure of some institutions. The 2012 data include information on 15.3 million home loan applications (of which nearly 9.8 million resulted in loan originations) and 3.2 million loan purchases, for a total of nearly 18.5 million actions. The data also include information on about 477,000 requests for preapprovals related to a home purchase loan. The total number of originated loans of all types and purposes reported increased by about 2.7 million, or 38 percent, from 2011, in part because of a 54 percent increase in the number of refinancings. Home purchase lending also increased, but by a more modest 13 percent.
Since the emergence of difficulties in the mortgage market several years ago, homebuyers have been heavily reliant on government-backed mortgages, particularly those insured by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) or guaranteed by the Veterans Administration (VA) to finance their purchases. Although FHA- and VA-backed loans play a role in the refinance market, the vast majority of such lending is conventional.
The 2012 HMDA data also include information on loan pricing. Lenders report pricing information for loans classified as “higher-priced.” The data on the incidence of higher-priced lending shows that a small minority of first-lien loans in 2012 have APRs that exceeded the loan price reporting thresholds. The principal exception was for conventional first-lien loans used to purchase manufactured homes; for such loans 82 percent exceeded the reporting threshold in 2012.
Regarding the disposition of applications for conventional home-purchase loans in 2012, black and Hispanic white applicants experienced higher denial rates than non-Hispanic white applicants. The denial rate for Asian applicants was virtually the same as the corresponding denial rate for non-Hispanic white applicants. These relationships are similar to those found in earlier years.
Financial institution disclosure statements, individual institutions’ LAR data, and MSA and nationwide aggregate reports are available at https://www.ffiec.gov/hmda. Refer to the HMDA data products at https://www.ffiec.gov/hmda/hmdaproducts.htm for the item descriptions and formats. More information about HMDA data reporting requirements is available in the Frequently Asked Questions on the FFIEC website at https://www.ffiec.gov/hmda/faq.htm.
Financial institutions are required to make their disclosure statements available at their home offices. For other MSAs in which financial institutions have offices, an institution must either make the disclosure statement available at one branch within each MSA or provide a copy upon receiving a written request. Questions about a HMDA report for a specific institution should be directed to the institution’s supervisory agency at the number listed below.
