New Data on Mortgage Lending is Now Available

The Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC) released the new Home Mortgage Disclosure Act records for 2008 this week.  The data, referred to as “HMDA data,” covers 14.2 million mortgage loan applications and another 2.9 million mortgage loan purchases on the secondary market.  Want to see what I am talking about? You can download the data here.

The HMDA data is released to help citizens understand how banks and other lenders are working in their neighborhoods.  It was legislated through the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, and it dovetails within the broader aims of the Community Reinvestment Act.

New legislation is on the table in DC that would counter the shortcomings of this data.  HMDA is broken.  (more…)