Recent increases in interest rates, combined with the rapid rise in house prices over the past two years, have eroded the affordability of homeownership. This note provides evidence that home purchase borrowing by below-average income households has fallen precipitously in 2022

This article documents patterns in residential mortgage lending through 2014 along a number of dimensions using data reported under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act. After describing high level trends in mortgage lending by race, ethnicity and income through 2014, the article examines: (1) The...

This article provides an overview of the 2013 data reported under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act of 1975 (HMDA) and documents mortgage market activity over time as well as lending patterns across different demographic groups and lender types. In addition, we use a unique data set composed of...

We compare mortgage lenders’ credit decisions to algorithmic recommendations – on the same set of loan applications – from widely used Automated Underwriting Systems (AUS) to assess discrimination. In 2018-19, lenders were more likely to deny minority applicants than non-Hispanic white...

This article presents findings from the HMDA data through 2016. The number of mortgage originations in 2016 rose 13 percent from 2015. Black and Hispanic white borrowers increased their share of home-purchase loans for the third straight year. The share of mortgages originated by nondepository,...

We assess racial discrimination in mortgage approvals using new data on mortgage applications. Minority applicants tend to have significantly lower credit scores, higher leverage, and are less likely than white applicants to receive algorithmic approval from race-blind government automated...

We study the effect of interest rates on the housing market by taking advantage of a sudden and unexpected price change in a large government mortgage program. The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) insures most mortgages to lower-downpayment, lower credit score borrowers, including a majority...

Regression discontinuity estimates indicate that home buying is highly responsive to interest rates in a large segment of the population. A surprise 50 basis point cut in the effective interest rate for mortgages insured by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) led to an immediate 14 percent...