Mortgage originations increased by 1.4 million, or 22%, during 2015, according to Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) data recently released by the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council.
A total of 6,913 U.S. financial institutions, including banks, savings associations, credit unions and mortgage companies, reported their lending data to the government under HMDA in 2015.
The data shows that refinance originations increased 36%, while purchase originations increased by 13%.
The 2015 data includes information on 12.1 million home loan applications, of which 7.4 million resulted in loan originations and 2.1 million in purchased loans, for a total of 14.2 million actions. The data also includes information on approximately 531,000 requests for pre-approvals for purchase loans.
During 2015, the share of purchase loans made to low- and moderate-income borrowers (those with income of less than 80% of area median income) increased slightly from approximately 26% in 2014 to roughly 27% in 2015.
During that same period, the share of refinance loans to low- and moderate-income borrowers decreased from 24% to 22%.
In terms of borrower race and ethnicity, the share of purchase loans made to black borrowers increased from 4.9% to nearly 5.2%, the share made to Hispanic borrowers increased from 7.5% to 7.9%, and those made to Asian borrowers decreased slightly from 5.7% to 5.5%.
The share of refinance loans made to black borrowers decreased from 5.2% to 4.9%, the share made to Hispanic borrowers increased slightly from 6.0% to 6.1%, and those made to Asian borrowers increased from 4.5% to 5.1%.
In 2015, black and Hispanic applicants experienced higher denial rates for conventional home purchase loans than white or Asian applicants.
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