Rising home prices and generally falling interest rates in recent years, together with a desire to convert the accumulated equity in their homes into spendable funds, have prompted many homeowners to refinance their mortgages. In the spring of 1999, the Federal Reserve surveyed consumers to...

Home-purchase lending to lower-income and minority households and neighborhoods has expanded significantly and at a faster rate than lending to other borrowers in recent years. Over the same period, however, an increasing proportion of applicants for conventional home-purchase mortgages,...