from CoreLogic
On September 22, the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC) released Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) data for 2014. Newly released HMDA data provides a number of key mortgage origination metrics for the preceding year and is used by analysts and regulators to determine not only who received a mortgage, but also the terms of financing. The evaluation of this information guides supervisory activities over lenders, informs private-market assessments of lending volumes, helps inform grant funding for the Department of Housing and Urban Development and is used as a key factor in determining affordability goals for the Government Sponsored Enterprises, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
One of the most prominent metrics released, originations, showed that they declined for all types and purposes from 8.7 million loans in 2013 to 6 million in 2014. Moderate increases in mortgage interest rates from 2013 to 2014 had a noticeable impact on refinance volumes, which declined by over half on a year over year basis, while home purchase lending rose by nearly 4 percent. Though there were declines overall in one- to four-family property refinances, the share made to black borrowers increased from 4.4 percent in 2013 to 5.2 percent in 2014, and the share made to Hispanic white borrowers rose a full percentage point over the same period.
Throughout the crisis years, the first-lien home mortgage for purchase transactions on one- to four-family, owner occupied properties was heavily reliant on government financing through the Veteran Loan Guaranty program, Federal Housing Administration and Rural Housing Services, peaking at 42 percent in 2009. The new figure indicates that the government-backed share in 2014 has also halved and was down an additional 3 percentage points from 24 percent in 2013 to 21 percent.
HMDA data is the product of what’s known as Regulation C, which was transferred to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) from the Federal Reserve Board and the industry continues to await the final rulemaking on modifications to the rule under the new supervisory agency. The CFPB has proposed to expand reporting requirements going forward as required under the Dodd-Frank Act. [1] On October 6, a colleague of ours will be further analyzing HMDA data alongside two researchers at the Urban Institute Data Talks.
[1] The CFPB has also exercised the statutory mandate to capture data that they deem necessary beyond the explicit fields within the Dodd-Frank Act.©2015 CoreLogic, Inc. All rights reserved.
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