Differential Access to and Pricing of Home Mortgages: 2004 through 2009

This article documents trends and drivers of the residential mortgage market during the years 2004 through 2009, specifically focusing on the access to and pricing of mortgages originated by African‐American and Hispanic borrowers, and by borrowers living in low‐income and minority communities. Our analysis relies on a rich set of proprietary data that allow more expanded insights than can be obtained from the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) alone. We show that access to mortgage credit increased between 2004 and 2006 for the borrowers we focus on in our study and declined dramatically thereafter. Trends in access to credit were driven primarily by the changing credit mix of mortgage applicants and secondarily by the replacement of the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) for subprime as the dominant mode of nonprime originations and tighter underwriting standards. Throughout our entire period of study, these borrowers also consistently paid higher prices for their mortgages; however, the extent of this differential varied considerably over time and across groups. These pricing trends were driven primarily by changes in the FHA and subprime shares as well as by the market's increasingly aggressive pricing of credit risk.