As part of their Technical Report Series, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Federal Housing Finance Agency have jointly issued “A Profile of 2013 Mortgage Borrowers: Statistics from the National Survey of Mortgage Originations.” Providing information derived from the first set of responses to the National Survey of Mortgage Originations administered by the CFPB and FHFA, the May 27, 2016, report provides an interesting profile of the U.S. mortgage market and borrowers’ experiences.
According to the report, the CFPB and FHFA reviewed and digested the results of National Survey of Mortgage Originations (NSMO) for its first year, based on responses from over 6,000 mortgage borrowers. In turn, the NSMO is tied to a “sampling frame drawn from the National Mortgage Database.”
In particular, the report presents the overall profile of survey respondents in 2013, including their demographic characteristics; what kind of mortgages they obtained; how the borrowers shopped for their mortgages; how they experienced the application and closing processes; and the borrowers’ opinions and expectations concerning financial responsibility, house prices, and neighborhoods.
Highlights. Among other things, the report notes that:
- more than 75 percent of the borrowers’ households were comprised of a married couple or partners living together;
- more than 86 percent of borrowers’ households included at least one full-time worker;
- approximately 66 percent of survey respondents had a credit score of 720 or higher;
- approximately 61 percent of survey respondents indicated that they refinanced an existing mortgage while 39 percent indicated they purchased a home;
- about 66 percent of survey respondents approached a lender directly for a mortgage—as opposed to approaching a mortgage broker;
- borrowers who either obtained a mortgage loan for an amount greater than $300,000 or were repeat buyers were “relatively more likely than other groups to use a broker”;
- while, overall, 81 percent of borrowers applied to just one lender, first-time buyers were the least likely group to apply to just one lender;
- nearly 18 percent of borrowers indicated that they were asked to resolve problems appearing on their credit report;
- about 20 percent of survey respondents reported having to delay their closing date;
- of those survey respondents who indicated they were offered an option to “lock in” the interest rate on their mortgage loan, 47 percent locked their rate when they applied for the loan, 43 percent locked their rate between the application process and the closing date, and 10 percent waited for the closing date before locking in the interest rate; and
- about 80 percent of borrowers reported that their mortgage included an escrow account for taxes or homeowners insurance.
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