In an effort to provide insight into borrowers’ experiences obtaining residential mortgages, the CFPB and FHFA on Wednesday published updated loan-level data for public use collected through the National Survey of Mortgage Originations.
Highlights of the data include:
- The percent of survey respondents who reported not being concerned about qualifying for a mortgage during the application process increased somewhat from 2018 to 2019 (from 48% to 51% for home purchase mortgages and 57% to 66% for refinances).
- The percent of survey respondents who reported a paperless online mortgage process being important in choosing the mortgage lender/broker remained relatively high and unchanged from 2018 to 2019 (40% for home purchase mortgages and 44% for refinances).
- The percent of survey respondents who reported applying for a mortgage through a mortgage broker increased from 2018 to 2019 (from 42% to 46% for home purchase mortgages and 30% to 38% for refinances).
- The percent of survey respondents who applied directly through a bank or credit union decreased from 2018 to 2019 (from 54% to 49% for home purchase mortgages and 67% to 61% for refinances).
Since 2014, the CFPB and FHFA and have sent surveys to borrowers who had recently obtained mortgages to obtain feedback on borrowers’ experiences during the process of getting a mortgage, their perceptions of the mortgage market and their future expectations. Thursday’s data release adds two years of mortgage data through 2019.