Note: Buying this product only gets you the most recent year of HMDA data, from 2008. For archived years back to 2000, please click here. For years previous, please contact the library.

The Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) requires all banks, savings and loans, savings banks and credit unions with assets of more than $33 million and offices in metropolitan areas to report mortgage applications. This act was enacted by Congress in 1975 and is implemented by the Federal Reserve Boards Regulation C. Banks, savings and loan associations, credit unions, and mortgage and consumer finance companies are required to report HMDA data if they meet legal criteria for coverage.

There were more than 17 million loan records for calendar year (CY) 2008 reported by 8,388 financial institutions. This is fewer than the more than 34 million loan records for calendar year (CY) 2006, reflecting the changes in the U.S. housing market.

Data generated by HMDA provides information on lending practices. The main data set is the Loan Application Register (LAR), called HMDA.DBF in the database provided by NICAR. It contains demographic information about loan applicants, including race, gender and income; the purpose of the loan (i.e. home purchase or improvement); whether the buyer intends to live in the home; the type of loan (i.e. conventional, FHA insured, etc.); a new field starting in 2004 called "spread," showing the difference between Treasury security interest rate and the loans interest rate; and the outcome of the loan application (i.e. approved or declined). The lenders are given the opportunity to note reasons for denial in three fields, but those are seldom used.

The LAR data also includes geographical information on applicants, such as Census tract, MA (metropolitan area), state and county, total population and percentage of minority population by Census tract, is included as well.

The names and addresses of lending institutions are stored in the TS.DBF and can be joined to the LAR data.

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• Story No. 15381: Banks and mortgage companies still do relatively little business among minorities and in minority neighborhoods. That applies to even the biggest banks, which under law must serve the entire area where they take deposits. Lenders still reject minority mortgage applicants far more frequently than whites. Even high income minorities are rejected more frequently than whites with lower incomes. These patterns don't prove illegal discrimination. But taken with interviews with dozens of loan applicants, bankers, community activists, regulators and researchers, they show that barriers to minority homeownership still stand.
• Story No. 22110: This three-day series looked at many facets of home lending. The reporters used mortgage loan data from 25 top lenders to show that blacks who bought homes in communities across America in 2004 were four times as likely as whites to get high interest rates for mortgage loans. The interest rate disparities occurred even when blacks had substantially higher incomes.
• Story No. 23297: This story utilized HMDA data, foreclosure reports and experts to explain how a wave of unstable mortgage loans were causing increasing numbers of uninformed borrowers to lose their homes. The investigation illustrated the problems faced by many people who, being unfamiliar with buying a home, ended up accepting very harsh terms on their loans and mortgages. Experts predict that this situation will lead to a rise in forclosures in the area.
• Story No. 22331: This investigation looks into the Chicago Housing Authority and demographic changes that have occurred with the destruction of public housing. Starting with 1995, The Chicago Reporter analyzed residential property transactions and home mortgage lending data, as well as Census data to track significant racial and economic shifts over the years.

• Tipsheet No. 1774: A run down on what you need to have to do HMDA data based stories and what pitfalls to watch out for in said data. A list of upcoming changes to the HMDA data is also included.
• Tipsheet No. 2838: Paula Lavigne discusses how to use HMDA data to analyze lending variations by race and ethnicity. Lavigne discusses the recent changes in Race/ethnicity reporting requirements and how to best analyze the data.
• Tipsheet No. 2812: At the 2007 CAR Conference, Jill Reipenhoff and Geoff Dutton shared various sources of information useful for investigations about home foreclosures. Some of the sources include the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, county auditors, and the National Delinquency Survey. The authors also share some examples of their own analysis on the topic.