More than one in every two open-end mortgage originations were issued by the top 25 lenders in the country, according to a 282-page analysis of data points collected through 2019 Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) data, the federal consumer financial protection agency said Thursday.
The report also shows that Black borrowers have the lowest median credit score of all groups covered by the data.
The report, “An Updated Review of the New and Revised Data Points in HMDA,” published by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) (and which the agency said provides further observations using 2019 HMDA data), states that the top lenders made 573,000 open-end originations in 2019. Those accounted for 53.6% of all open-end originations reported under HMDA.
The report notes that, with one exception, the top 25 open-end lenders are banks or credit unions. The exception is one non-depository institution that specializes in reverse mortgages. The two largest open-end reporters in 2018 HMDA data, Bank of America and Wells Fargo, remained the top two open-end lenders in 2019 data, and most other top open-end reporters from 2018 data remained in the top 25 list as well, the report states.
Other aspects of the report include:
- Black borrowers have the lowest overall median credit score, at 694 (up from 691 in 2018). Across each enhanced loan type, the report states, the median credit score of Black borrowers is also the lowest in comparison to other racial/ethnic groups.
- The overall median credit score for Hispanic White borrowers is 714 (up from 710 in 2018), the second lowest among all racial/ethnicity groups. Median credit scores for Hispanic White borrowers are lower than non-Hispanic White and Asian borrowers and higher than Black borrowers for most enhanced loan types, except for FHA loans and RHS/FSA loans in which the median credit score of non-Hispanic White borrowers are slightly lower. The median credit score overall for non-Hispanic White borrowers is 752 (up from 748 in 2018), lower than Asian borrowers but higher than Black and Hispanic White borrowers.
- White applicants for loans reported in the data make up 64.2% of all applicants, followed by Black or African-American (6.7%) and Asian (4.7%).
- Conventional jumbo loans have the highest mean and median credit scores among closed-end mortgages, with a mean score of 765 and a median of 773. FHA borrowers have the lowest mean and median scores among closed-end mortgages, with a mean score of 668 and a median of 663.
An Updated Review of the New and Revised Data Points in HMDA