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The Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) – An Amazing Guide

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The Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) – An Amazing Guide

What Is the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA)?

The Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) is a federal law which got approved in 1975.

According to this act, the mortgage lenders are required to keep records of key pieces of information about their lending practices, which they must submit to regulatory authorities.

The Federal Reserve through Regulation C implemented it. In 2011, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) got the rule-writing authority of Regulation C.

Explanation of Home Mortgage Disclosure Act?

The Home Mortgage Disclosure Act and Regulation C both need requirements for regulatory submissions and public disclosures.

In Title 12, Chapter 29 of the United States Code you can find the entire Home Mortgage Disclosure Act of which Regulation C is also an important component.

The Federal Reserve created Regulation C to overlay the requirements of the Act and designate certain additional requirements that banks must follow.

The aim of the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act and Regulation C is to watch the geographic targets of mortgage lenders, identifying the predatory or discriminatory lending practices, and report to the government on statistics about the mortgage market.

By providing a means for analyzing the allocation of resources the HMDA also helps support government-sponsored community investment initiatives.

The government agencies, consumer groups, and bank examiners use the data to determine compliance with various federal fair housing and credit laws including the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, the Fair Housing Act, and the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), and state laws.

In accordance with the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act of 1975 the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC).

In 1980, was given the responsibility of facilitating public access to mortgage information from financial institutions.

Even though the HMDA asks lenders to identify the sex, race, and income of those applying for or obtaining mortgages, in record keeping the data is anonymized.

With this data, the FFIEC gets to monitor trends in housing and mortgage borrowing and lending, like a reported rise in mortgage borrowing by Blacks and Hispanics as of 1993.

For reporting purposes, certain mortgage lenders are required to maintain records of specified mortgage lending information Under the HMDA and Regulation C.

8.1 million loan originations were reported by 5,496 lenders in 2019, representing 88% of the total estimated loan originations in the United States of America.

In April 2020, a final rule was issued by the CFPB wherein the data-reporting thresholds were raised to 100 from 25 loans for collecting and reporting data about closed-end mortgage loans under the HMDA that became effective from July 1, 2020.

Regulators are allowed to analyze information on mortgage loans and mortgage lending trends in a number of categories, like the number of pre-approvals made, the number of mortgages granted, loan amounts, and the purposes of individual loans with HMDA reporting.

The detailed approvals of different types of government-sponsored loans like the Federal Housing Administration, Farm Service Agency, Rural Housing Services, and Veterans Affairs loans are included in federal reporting.

Lenders are required by the Federal Regulation C to prominently display a poster in every branch office lobby that provides information on requesting their unique HMDA statistics.

The CFPB data repository provides viewing of these statistics by the public online for free.

While potential borrowers have a natural interest in these statistics they are also an important research tool for investors researching banking and lending stocks.

An investor can easily identify whether or not a lender is growing its core business just by comparing the most recent few years’ statistics.

Conclusion

A law passed in 1975 that mandates mortgage lenders maintain certain records is the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA).

The intention of the implementation of the act was to create greater transparency and to protect borrowers in the residential mortgage market.

These records allow regulators, public officials, and consumer watchdogs to monitor trends in mortgage borrowing and lending for compliance with fair housing and other laws and to direct housing investment and government funding to places that require it.

https://www.compareclosing.com/blog/home-mortgage-disclosure-act-hmda/

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