On August 19, 2021, the CFPB issued a report on HMDA data collected in 2018, 2019, and 2020 that outlined several trends in residential mortgage originations. The report, called ‘Data Point: 2020 Mortgage Market Activity and Trends,’ is available here.  

The report includes a comparison of the last three years of lender-reported HMDA data, with 2018 as the first year of the current, larger set of data points collected under revised HMDA requirements. Against a backdrop of falling rates from year to year (the median fixed rate for first-lien site-built home purchase loans was 4.75% in 2018, 4.125% in 2019, and 3.125% in 2020), total origination volume, driven by increased refinance volume, increased each year from the prior year.  

One of the CFPB’s key findings was that the total number of reporting institutions declined almost 20% from 2019 to 2020, although much of that decline could be attributed to a higher reporting threshold for closed-end loans (minimum 25 loans a year over a two-year lookback period in 2018 became a minimum 100 loans a year for 2020).  Home purchase loans dipped in early 2020, likely because of the pandemic, but increased significantly over 2019 in the latter half of 2020.

From a demographic standpoint, over the 2018-2020 period, Black and Hispanic borrowers continued to have lower median loan amounts and credit scores paid higher median interest rates and total loan costs and were more likely to be denied than non-Hispanic white and Asian borrowers. On the other hand, from 2019 to 2020, Black borrowers increased their share of closed-end home purchase loans, while Asian borrowers increased their share of refinance loans.