Data from HMDA

Last month, the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC) released data provided by institutions covered by the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) (whew!). The total volume of home loan applications and purchases increased in 2002 by 13 percent from 2001, primarily due to a significant increase (22%) in refinancing activity. (Good evidence that those consumers were savvy.) Requests for refinancing accounted for 66 percent of all home loan applications. Lenders processed 26 million applications for a variety of home loans, up from 24 million the previous year. The number of applications for home purchase loans in 2002 rose three percent above the level in 2001.

Applications for different types of home purchase loans varied across racial and ethnic groups and income categories. For example, in 2002, 27 percent of Hispanic applicants and 28 percent of black applicants for home purchase loans applied for government-backed mortgages. The comparable rates for Asians, Whites and Native Americans were 6 percent, 14 percent, and 19 percent. Moreover, 25 percent of home-loan applicants with incomes below 80 percent of the median family income for their metropolitan areas applied for government-backed loans. By contrast, only seven percent of applicants with incomes of at least 120 percent of the metropolitan area's median income applied for such loans.

For conventional and government-backed home purchase loans, lending to various groups rose in 2002 as follows: Asian (18 percent), Hispanics (11 percent) and Native Americans 23 percent). Over the same period, lending to whites and blacks rose 3 percent and 2 percent respectively.