HMDA 2013 Data Now on PolicyMap

The eagerly-awaited 2013 Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (or, HMDA) data has arrived on PolicyMap and is available to all of our users for free. We greatly anticipate the HMDA data update every year because it gives such a compelling account of what the mortgage market is doing and how it reflects the overall housing market’s climb out of the recession.

This year’s HMDA data did not lack for interesting trends. Across the nation, 2013 saw an overall decline of loans, but a promising 13% increase in purchase loans. The number declined overall primarily because of a 23% reduction in refinance mortgages, as a result of higher interest rates.
And after an increase in Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and other government-insured loans throughout the housing crisis, government-insured loans decreased in 2013, possibly due to a rise in mortgage insurance premiums associated with FHA loans. This trend is particularly remarkable because of FHA’s recent role in the housing market: just two years ago it accounted for around half of all loans in the market. Notably, high-cost lending that had dried up during the recession has begun to increase, albeit very gradually.