Interest Rate Increases Push More Loans into Subprime Bucket, Fed HMDA Analysis Finds
September 14, 2006
Mortgage lenders reported more subprime loans in their Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data in 2005 – a trend that the Federal Reserve Board says reflects the impact of rising interest rates and a flatter yield curve. But that explanation isn’t washing with community advocates who say that wide price disparities evident in the data show discrimination is alive and well in the mortgage market. At issue are “rate-spread” mortgages, identified in the HMDA regulations as first-lien loans with annual percentage rates that...