The data that mortgage lending institutions reported for 2009 under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act of 1975 (HMDA) reflect the ongoing difficulties in the housing and mortgage markets. This article presents a number of key findings from a review of the 2009 HMDA data. In particular, it...

Many homeowners miss significant savings by not refinancing when interest rates are low. Among those who may find refinancing difficult are borrowers with balances below $150,000. Low-balance mortgagors pay proportionally more closing costs, are offered higher interest rates, and may find fewer...

We test for racial discrimination in the prices charged by mortgage lenders. We construct a unique dataset where we observe all three dimensions of a mortgage's price: the interest rate, discount points, and fees. While we find statistically significant gaps by race and ethnicity in interest...

Regression discontinuity estimates indicate that home buying is highly responsive to interest rates in a large segment of the population. A surprise 50 basis point cut in the effective interest rate for mortgages insured by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) led to an immediate 14 percent...

Using credit record panel data from 1999-2010, we show that the likelihood of home equity extraction (borrowing, on average, about $40,000 against one's home) peaked in 2003 when mortgage rates hit historic lows, and estimate that a 100 basis point rate decline is associated with a 25 percent...

We test for racial discrimination in the prices charged by mortgage lenders. We construct a unique dataset where we observe all three dimensions of a mortgage's price: the interest rate, discount points, and fees. While we find statistically significant gaps by race and ethnicity in interest...