HMDA Mortgage Statistics: Home Buyer Data By Race, Gender, Ethnicity, & More

Welcome to the 2023 Homebuyer.com Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) study.

In our annual home buyer study, we present mortgage statistics parsed from 16.1 million mortgage applications submitted by U.S. home buyers last year and 100.6 million mortgage applications since 2018.

Our data source is the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC), which collects mortgage application data from U.S. lenders per Regulation C. Data is stripped of personally identifiable information, then sorted by race, gender, ethnicity, and dozens of other criteria.

This article was initially published on June 29, 2023, then updated with new analysis through July 2023. The release notes and publishing history are below:

• June 29, 2023: Initial publish date to coincide with FFIEC HDMA data release date
• June 30, 2023: Updated with additional insight from the 2022 Snapshot Loan Level Data Set
• July 4, 2023: Updated with Borrower Creditworthiness statistics
• Mid-July 2023: Updated with additional Borrower Demographics and Mortgage Lender statistics
• August 5, 2023: Updated with additional Mortgage Lender statistics

We encourage you to read our study methodology and cite this study in research, websites, and newscasts. Please use proper attribution as described at the bottom of this article.

HMDA Data For U.S. Home Buyers

As part of our annual study, we answer basic questions about U.S. home buyers and their mortgages, including:

• How many home buyers applied for a mortgage?
• How many mortgage applications were approved?
• How many mortgage applications were denied?

Next, we delve into additional mortgage statistics, such as:

• What was the mortgage approval rate by race?
• What is the total cost of homeownership by gender?
• What was the debt-to-income ratio of approved mortgages by race?

Finally, we make comparison mortgage statistics, such as:

• Are men more likely to get approved for a mortgage than women?
• Do home buyers of different races get different mortgage terms?
• Do home buyers get different mortgage rates based on where they live?

Homebuyer.com writes our annual HMDA study to promote decency and fair treatment for first-time home buyers.

What Is The Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA)?

HMDA is short for the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act. Pronounced “HUM-duh”, HMDA requires lenders to share data about the mortgage loans they approve and decline.

The government’s HMDA reports are the most comprehensive public database for U.S. mortgage market activity. It serves as a fairness check on mortgage lenders and their practices.

The Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC) and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) govern HMDA reporting. These agencies require lenders to file annual reports with extensive loan-level details.

The complete HMDA dataset contains 99 fields, which can be grouped into five categories:

1. Borrower demographics
2. Borrower creditworthiness
3. Loan characteristics
4. Property characteristics
5. Lender identification

This annual study starts with general information and expands into the above five categories to reveal the state of mortgage lending and mortgage market activity nationwide. Data is compiled from the HMDA Snapshot Loan-Level Datasets as available on the CFPB website.

Home Buyer Mortgage Statistics

Mortgage Statistics by Borrower Demographics

The next section of our home buyer study focuses on borrower demographics.

Borrower demographics refer to specific characteristics of mortgage applicants, such as gender, race, ethnicity, and age. We use HMDA data to measure purchase mortgage applications and their outcomes by demographic group.

To ensure fair comparisons among various demographics, we normalized and grouped HMDA records by creditworthiness, which can be summarized as loan-to-value, debt-to-income, and credit score.

We only included home buyers whose household income is 80 percent of the area median income or more, whose debt-to-income ratios are 45% or less, and whose credit scores are mortgage-qualifying.

Mortgage Statistics by Borrower Creditworthiness

The next section of our home buyer study focuses on borrower creditworthiness.

HMDA law requires lenders to report three data points linked to creditworthiness: applicant credit score, debt-to-income ratio, and mortgage loan-to-value. These characteristics are also known as the 3 Cs of mortgage lending – credit, capacity-to-repay, and collateral.

• Credit scores measure the probability that a person will make on-time payments to their lender
• Debt-to-income ratio measures a person’s available monthly cash flow
• Loan-to-value measures the size of a home buyer’s down payment

The data in this section shows how creditworthiness affects a home buyer’s opportunity to get a mortgage approved.

Mortgage Statistics by Loan Characteristics

The following section of our home buyer study examines Loan Characteristics.

HMDA regulations mandate lenders to provide 26 loan-level details about the applications submitted by buyers, including mortgage type, loan amount, and loan term.

• Mortgage type is whether a mortgage is a conventional loan, FHA loan, VA loan, or USDA loan
• Loan amount is the amount of money borrowed to purchase a home
• Loan term is the length of the mortgage loan, in years

We also include data comparing adjustable-rate mortgages and fixed-rate mortgages.

The mortgage statistics in this section show how the characteristics of a loan may influence a home buyer’s mortgage approval and interest rate.

Mortgage Statistics by Property Characteristics

In our study’s Property Characteristics part, we look at how property details play into mortgage statistics. These characteristics include the type, location, and purpose of the property.

Property type refers to the kind of property for which a mortgage is sought. This could be a single-family home, a multifamily property, or a manufactured home. The property type can affect the chances of loan approval and the mortgage interest rate offered.

Another aspect is the property’s location. This can be in a rural, suburban, or urban area. Lenders might look at the property’s location when deciding whether to approve a mortgage. In some cases, they may offer different mortgage rates based on the geography.

The purpose of the property matters, too. The property could be a primary residence, a second home, or an investment property. Lenders often offer different rates and approval criteria based on the property’s purpose.

The subsequent section of our HMDA study explores property characteristics and mortgage approvals.

HMDA rules require mortgage lenders to record details about properties linked to their mortgage applications and funding, including home value, property type, and occupancy.

• Home value is the home’s purchase price or appraised value, whichever is lower
• Property type is the property’s unit count, from 1-unit to many units
• Occupancy indicates whether the home is a buyer’s primary residence, second home, or investment property

For purposes of this home buyer study, we filtered HMDA records for 1-4 unit homes only that are purchased as a primary residence except as noted.

Mortgage Statistics by Lender Identification

In the Lender Identification portion of our study, we explore the role of the lender in mortgage applications. Each lending institution has its strategies, policies, and practices. These factors can affect the approval rates, fees, and interest rates they offer.

Lender Identification is not about individual loan officers but the institutions they work for. Lenders can range from big banks to small credit unions and traditional lenders to online-only platforms.

Some lenders may specialize in certain types of loans or cater to specific borrower demographics.

Understanding lenders’ roles and practices can provide valuable insights for prospective home buyers. In this section, we analyze the HMDA data to reveal the impact of lender identification on mortgage applications and approvals.

Methodology

The data for our study was gathered from the FFIEC website, specifically the Snapshot National Loan Level Dataset for 2018-2023. These Snapshot files contain national HMDA datasets as of April 30, 2022, from all HMDA reporters. The data was modified by the Bureau to protect applicant and borrower privacy.

To keep our study focused, we filtered the data specifically for home buyers. We removed mortgage applications for purposes other than buying a home, including home construction and refinancing. We limited the study’s scope to properties with 1-4 units. We did not include open-ended mortgages in first-lien positions including home equity line of credit (HELOC) mortgages, and excluded reverse mortgages from our analysis.

HMDA records enumerate seven mortgage application outcomes, which the LAR data field schema labels action_taken. We grouped HMDA records according to action_taken as follows:

• Successful: Applications that resulted in funded mortgages
• Unsuccessful: Applications not approved by a mortgage lender
• Deferred: Applications withdrawn by the home buyer or closed due to incompleteness
• Offer Declined: Applications approved by the lender but not accepted by the home buyer

Our analysis was performed using database queries. This allowed us to efficiently sift through the large dataset and pull out the most relevant information. We removed outlier data, mostly linked to mortgage applications that applicants either withdrew or that lenders denied due to incompleteness, that fell outside of typical and expected ranges.

Less than one-half of one percent of HMDA data was excluded for reasonability reasons.

Despite the completeness of the HMDA data, our study required additional calculations to answer more complex questions. Relative percentages and comparison figures were derived from more advanced calculations.

To ensure the accuracy of our study, we relied on the robustness of the HMDA data and the precision of our database queries. The stringent process of data extraction, filtering, and analysis contributed to the reliability of our results.

How To Share Our Research

Homebuyer.com conducts our annual HMDA mortgage data research to help home buyers understand the mortgage market and promote decency and fair treatment for first-time home buyers.

Our detailed findings can be shared across social media platforms, personal blogs, and online forums or used in academic and professional presentations. However, we request that you adhere to the following attribution guidelines while doing so:

• Please include highlights from the study only. Do not copy images or tables.
• You must include a link to the complete study on the Homebuyer.com website.
• You must link to this page URL using one of these three terms: “Mortgage Statistics”, “HMDA Mortgage Data”, or “Homebuyer.com”.
• Avoid misrepresentation by not altering our findings.

By sharing our HMDA mortgage data study and following these guidelines, we can work together to promote a fair and transparent mortgage lending environment for all home buyers.

For follow-up information and usage rights for our research, please email our team at hello@homebuyer.com. We would love to help you do more with our data.