ABA Banking Journal
The Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council today released the 2014 Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data on mortgage lending transactions at 7,062 financial institutions. The 2014 data showed a declining — but still historically large — share of government-backed mortgage originations and an overall substantial decline in refinances. The data encompasses 9.9 million mortgage applications, nearly 6 million of which resulted in loan originations.
Overall, loans backed by the Federal Housing Administration, Veterans Administration or federal farm programs accounted for 38 percent of all new mortgages in 2014, down from the peak of 54 percent in 2009. Home purchase originations rose by 4 percent from 2013, while refinance originations dropped 55 percent from 2013.
The HMDA data showed that black and Hispanic borrowers increased their share of originations in 2014, while the share of loans originated by Asian Americans fell slightly. The share of home purchase loans going to low- and moderate-income borrowers dipped one point to 25 percent, and the share of refinances by LMI borrowers rose one point to 21 percent. “Higher-priced” loans — those with APRs that exceed prime offer rates by 1.5 points for first-lien loans — accounted for 8 percent of all first-lien loans in 2014, up three points from 2013.