Cross-lender variation in home mortgage lending

A lender-specific analysis of differences in minority and low-income mortgage loan originations using new applicant-level data gathered under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act of 1975.Home Mortgage Disclosure Act ; Mortgages ; Discrimination in mortgage loans

Lender consistency in housing credit markets

An examination of how and why individual financial institutions vary in their propensity to attract and approve mortgage applications from minorities, using Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data.Mortgages ; Housing - Finance ; Home Mortgage Disclosure Act

Accounting for racial differences in housing credit markets

A documentation of racial and neighborhood differences in home mortgage denial rates using data collected under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, exploring the extent to which objective lending criteria are responsible for observed differences. The authors find persistent variations in denial rates between white and minority applicants, but emphasize that the HMDA data do not contain enough relevant information to draw any firm conclusions regarding causation.Discrimination in mortgage loans ; Mortgages ; Home Mortgage Disclosure Act ; Community Reinvestment Act of 1977

The 2008 HMDA data: the mortgage market during a turbulent year

The data that mortgage lending institutions reported for 2008 under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act of 1975 (HMDA) reflect the ongoing difficulties in the housing and mortgage markets. This article presents a number of key findings from a review of the 2008 HMDA data. In particular, it documents a reduction in lending activity that was experienced by all groups of borrowers, highlights the Federal Housing Administration's greatly expanded role in the mortgage market, and examines how atypical changes in the interest rate environment affected the incidence of reported higher-priced lending in 2008 relative to earlier years.Mortgages ; Home Mortgage Disclosure Act

Updating HMDA

Carol Lewis of the Boston Fed provides lenders and others who track HMDA (Home Mortgage Disclosure Act) with an overview of changes to the Regulation that takes effect in 2003. She reviews the Regulation's expanding coverage, additional data reporting requirements, and definition changes.Home Mortgage Disclosure Act

The 2009 HMDA data: the mortgage market in a time of low interest rates and economic distress

Mortgages ; Home Mortgage Disclosure Act

Home mortgage lending by the numbers

A look at some of the issues associated with reports that minority applicants for home mortgage loans are far more likely than whites to be denied credit. The authors raise the concern that simple comparisons of denial rates are not sufficient for grasping the complexities surrounding community-oriented lending.Mortgages ; Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 ; Home Mortgage Disclosure Act

The effect of neighborhood contagion on mortgage selection

In this paper we conduct an empirical investigation of how neighborhood mortgage adoption contagion affects mortgage product choice, with an emphasis on Hispanic borrowers. We use loan-level mortgage data for metropolitan areas in California and Florida during 2004 and 2005, the peak years of the subprime mortgage boom. We identify an important and statistically significant effect of contagion on consumer choice of hybrid mortgage products that were popular during this period, especially for Hispanic borrowers.Subprime mortgage ; Home Mortgage Disclosure Act ; Hispanic Americans

New information reported under HMDA and its application in fair lending enforcement

In 2002 the Federal Reserve Board amended its Regulation C, which implements the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act of 1975, to expand the types of information that lenders covered by the law must disclose to the public about their home-lending activities. The amendments are intended to improve the quality, consistency, and utility of the reported data and to keep the regulation in step with recent developments in home-loan markets. Data reported for 2004 are the first to reflect the changes in the reporting rules. ; This article presents a first look at these greatly expanded data and considers some of their implications for the continuing concerns about fair lending. The analysis highlights some key relationships revealed in an initial review of the types of data that are new for 2004. Some parts of the analysis focus on nationwide statistics, and others examine patterns across groups of lenders, loan products, and various groupings of applicants, borrowers, and neighborhoods. The authors explore, in particular and in some depth, the strengths and limitations of the information on loan pricing. They also describe how the new data are being used to enhance fair lending enforcement activities.Regulation C: Home Mortgage Disclosure ; Home Mortgage Disclosure Act

A Monte Carlo examination of bias tests in mortgage lending

An exploration of the effectiveness of testing procedures in uncovering discrimination by mortgage lenders, reflecting perceived shortcomings in the scope of data provided by the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, which indicates that the rejection rate for black mortgage applicants is much higher than for whites. The authors find that for plausible levels of bias, the sample size is critical, but that low levels of bias can be difficult to detect even with large sample sizes.Mortgages ; Discrimination in mortgage loans