Public access online to Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA)

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) launched an online tool to provide consumers with easy access to public mortgage information collected under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA). The tool enables greater transparency by helping inform people of trends in their local mortgage markets.

In 1975, Congress passed the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act requiring most mortgage lenders to make loan information available to the public. In 2012, there were approximately 18.7 million HMDA records from 7,400 financial institutions. This information includes the majority of the country’s mortgage applications and mortgages made – known as loan “originations” – by banks, savings associations, credit unions, and mortgage companies. The public information is important because it helps show whether lenders are serving the housing needs of their communities; it gives public officials information that helps them make decisions and policies; and it sheds light on lending patterns that could be discriminatory.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) now has jurisdiction over this data collection. On Sept. 18 the Bureau launched an online tool to provide consumers with easy access to public mortgage information collected under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA). The tool enables greater transparency by helping inform people of trends in their local mortgage markets.

The CFPB access point focuses on the number of mortgage applications and originations (completed mortgages), in addition to loan purposes and loan types for 2010 through 2012. It looks specifically at first-lien, owner-occupied, one- to four- family and manufactured homes. Using the tool, the public can see nationwide summaries or they can choose interactive features that allow them to isolate the information for metropolitan areas. Using the tool, advocates and the public can easily explore millions of data points with these user-friendly graphs and charts. The HMDA data is available at: www.consumerfinance.gov/hmda

Go To: Public access online to Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA)