Housing Finance Working Paper Series

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This paper examines the coverage of HMDA data by taking advantage of loan-level data reported to HUD on mortgages insured by FHA and mortgages purchased by the GSEs. The FHA and GSE data bases provide an accurate standard against which HMDA data on FHA and GSE loans can be measured. The results of this paper provide background for using HMDA data to estimate the market share of loans for FHA and the GSEs by reporting HMDA coverage rates for FHA originations and GSE acquisitions of mortgages for 1993 through 1996. The paper finds that HMDA data under-reports GSE acquisitions mainly because a few large lenders fail to correctly report the sale of a significant number of their loans to the GSEs. Notwithstanding coverage issues, HMDA data continues to be the most comprehensive data base for measuring primary and secondary mortgage market activity.