by Tanta on 9/14/2007 03:11:00 PM

Maybe readers of this blog will knock out the Federal Reserve's server. We are nerds.

Some highlights:

On consolidation and concentrations in the industry:

For both the 2004 and 2005 HMDA data, nearly 80 percent of the reporting institutions were depositories (commercial banks, savings associations, or credit unions); independent mortgage companies or mortgage companies affiliated with banking institutions or their holding companies accounted for the rest. Although mortgage companies represented only 22 percent of the reporting institutions, they submitted information on more than 60 percent of all the reported loans and applications.

Most lenders reported relatively little home lending. The most active lenders (those providing information on 5,000 or more loans or applications) accounted for about 5 percent of the reporting institutions and nearly 90 percent of all the reported loans and applications.

On the composition of 2006 originations:

For 2006, lenders covered by HMDA reported information on 27.5 million applications for home loans. Almost all the applications were for loans to be secured by one- to four-family (so-called single-family) houses, as follows: 10.9 million applications to purchase a home, 2.5 million to make home improvements, and 14.0 million to refinance an existing home loan. The balance (about 0.1 million) was for loans secured by multifamily dwellings—those for five or more families (table 1 [tables appear after main text]). These applications resulted in nearly 14 million loan extensions. Lenders also reported information on 6.2 million loans they purchased from other institutions and on 411,000 requests for pre-approvals of home purchase loans; the pre-approval requests either were turned down by the lender at the time the pre-approval was sought or (not shown in table) were granted but not acted on by the applicant.

The total number of reported applications and purchased loans fell 2.3 million, or 6 percent, from 2005; most of the decline was for refinancings. The number of applications for loans to refinance an existing loan fell 1.9 million, or about 12 percent; the number declined most likely because short-term interest rates increased from the end of 2005 through much of 2006 and thereby reduced the number of existing loans that could be refinanced at a lower rate. Slower house-price appreciation and, in some areas, outright declines in property values also likely diminished the attractiveness of refinancing or the borrower’s ability to refinance.

On denial rates:

The HMDA data for 2006, like those from earlier years, indicate that lenders approve most of the applications they receive, although the proportion approved or denied varies by loan purpose, type of loan and property, and lien status. In general, denial rates are higher for refinancings and for home-improvement loans than for home-purchase loans, perhaps because of the prequalification and financial counseling activities that many prospective borrowers go through before purchasing a home (table 4). Denial rates are lower for government-backed loans than for conventional loans but are especially high for loans to purchase manufactured homes. Overall, the denial rate for all home loans in 2006 was 29 percent, compared with 27 percent in 2005.

On loan size:

For 2006, about 90 percent of conventional loans for purchase and likewise for refinancing, whether higher-priced or not, were within the conforming loan limit (table 6). Higher-priced loans tended to be somewhat smaller than others; for example, among conventional home-purchase loans, the mean size of higher-priced mortgages was $209,000, compared with $246,000 for others. . . . Among those obtaining conventional home-purchase mortgages, the mean income of individuals [Tanta: I believe this means the total income of all borrowers on an individual loan] with a conforming loan was $82,400, versus a mean income of $258,000 for those with a jumbo loan. And, again among borrowers using conventional loans, those using higher-priced loans either to purchase a home or to refinance had a mean income about 20 percent lower than borrowers not paying higher prices.

On owner occupancy:

After declining in the early 1990s, the share of non-owner-occupant lending among first-lien loans to purchase one- to four-family site-built homes began rising in 1994, and it has risen in every year between 1996 (when it was 6.4 percent) and 2005, when it reached 17.3 percent (table 8). For 2006, the share fell somewhat, to 16.5 percent. Further, in line with the experience for home purchase loans to owner-occupants, the number of conventional first-lien loans to purchase homes by non-owner-occupants fell about 17 percent from 2005.

There's a great deal more in here, including a lot of information on high-priced lending and minority/low-income lending patterns which needs to be digested by your intrepid blogger. But if you don't have a date lined up for tonight, there's 77 pages of HMDA data analysis waiting for you in the Nerd Cave . . .