Overview of the GSE Public Use Data Base
The 1992 GSE Act required HUD to create a data base on mortgage purchases by the GSEs
and make it available to the public. In 1992, Congress felt there was an "information vacuum"
on the type of mortgages the GSEs were purchasing. Because Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac receive
significant benefits from their government-sponsored status, Congress wanted to assure that the
public was getting enough in return.
Beginning with 1993, the GSEs have provided HUD annually with loan-level data
on each mortgage they acquire. For the GSEs' 1993-1995 submissions,
HUD copied the loan-level records to data files but omitted
certain variables that had been deemed proprietary by the
Secretary of HUD and recategorized the values of other proprietary
variables into ranges so that they were no longer proprietary.
The October 4, 2004 Final Order that established
which variables were proprietary is available in text
format and *.pdf
format.
The single-family data sets include detailed data on the income,
race and gender of the borrower as well as the census tract location, loan-to-value (LTV)
ratios and affordability. The multifamily data sets include
information on number, type and affordability of units and the size of the property,
mortgage balance, and type of organization that sold the mortgage to the GSE.
The GSE Public Use Data Base data files that are available for 1993-95 contain
information on 10.8 million single-family units and
750,000 multifamily units. The 1996 loan-level data,
expected to be available by the end of the 1997 summer, would add another
3 million single-family units and 372,000 multifamily units.
The single-family component of the data base consists of three files, one of
which includes census tract identifiers. The Census Tract File has loan-level information
on the census tract location of the properties that secure mortgages purchased by the GSEs.
This file allows analysis of areas by groups interested in local communities and smaller
geographic areas. Since the Census Tract File contains loan-level records on all
single-family mortgages, covering both owner-occupied and investment properties and
meets the statutory requirement that HUD release the census tract location and race,
gender, and income of the borrower(s), community groups and associations can analyze
the borrower's characteristics as well as neighborhood characteristics of where the
GSEs are and are not purchasing mortgages. This file also gives the unpaid principal
balance of the mortgage and whether the mortgage was purchased by a first-time homebuyer
or by a repeat-buyer.
To further fill the "information vacuum," yet protect the proprietary interests
of the GSEs, HUD created additional file structures for the dissemination of important
mortgage data such as the LTV, seasoned product, and purpose of the loan -- whether a
purchase or refinanced loan. To accomplish this, two additional files were released
that removed geographic information and added several additional variables either on
owner-occupied one-unit mortgages as in National File A or, in the case of
National File B, on all single-family units financed by the GSEs. However,
both files still have information characterizing the location of the mortgaged
properties such as the affordability of the area and the minority concentration
of the census tract. For example, using National File A, an analyst could determine
whether the GSEs are purchasing most of their high LTV single-family owner-occupied
mortgages from predominantly white, middle class neighborhoods or from minority,
lower-income neighborhoods.
The multifamily data base includes one file that releases the census tract
location of the GSEs' multifamily purchases and a second file that releases
information on the units in the properties financed by the mortgages. The primary
purpose of the Census Tract File is to release information on the location of the
property, general size of the property, and type of institution selling the property
to the GSE. Whereas the National File was designed to provide information on the
size of the property in terms of units and the affordability of the units in each
property.
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