The 2008 HMDA Data: The Mortgage Market during a Turbulent Year

[Note: This article is forthcoming in the Federal Reserve Bulletin.] The Home Mortgage Disclosure Act of 1975 (HMDA) requires most mortgage lending institutions with offices in metropolitan areas to publicly disclose information about their homelending activity. The information includes the disposition of applications for mortgage credit, the characteristics of the home mortgages that lenders originate or purchase during a calendar year, the location of the properties related to those loans, and personal demographic and other information about the borrowers. 1 The disclosures are intended not only to help the public determine whether institutions are adequately serving their communities’ housing finance needs, but also to facilitate enforcement of the nation’s fair lending laws and to inform investment in both the public and private sectors. The Federal Reserve Board implements the provisions of HMDA through regulation. 2 The Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC) is responsible for collecting the HMDA data and facilitating public access to the information. 3 Each September, the FFIEC releases summary tables pertaining to lending activity from the previous calendar year for each reporting lender and aggregations of home-lending activity for each metropolitan statistical area