Today, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) released several sets of demographic data related to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s (the Enterprises) fair lending and housing goals activities. The rate of homeownership for minority families in the United States continues to lag well behind the national average. Fair lending is central to the principles under which the U.S. housing finance system operates, and the monitoring of fair lending data is one component of FHFA’s oversight of the secondary mortgage market. Another component is oversight of the Enterprises’ annual housing goals, including the single-family housing goals focused on low-income borrowers and borrowers living in minority areas.
The fair lending data and housing goals data available for public use include:
- Enterprise single-family automated underwriting system application approvals by race and ethnicity and Enterprise loan acquisitions by race and ethnicity, including a comparison to primary market lender mortgage approval rates by race and ethnicity;
- The distribution of 2018-2020 Enterprise housing goals loan purchases by race and ethnicity; and
- The distribution of 2018-2020 Enterprise housing goals loan purchases by state.
Together, the data will provide insights into the racial, ethnic, and geographic composition of single-family loans acquired by the Enterprises.