Data sets on single-family and multifamily mortgage purchases in 2008 by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (the Enterprises) are now available from the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) in the Public Use Database (PUDB).  The 2008 data sets add a sixteenth year in the PUDB series, previously released for 1993 through 2007 by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).  Mortgage data in the PUDB supply mortgage lenders, planners, researchers, and housing advocates with information concerning the flow of mortgage credit and capital in America’s communities.  Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are required to meet specified goals for purchases of mortgages that finance housing for very low-, low- and moderate-income families and families living in areas traditionally underserved by the mortgage market. 

FHFA releases the PUDB annually in compliance with Section 1323 of the Federal Housing Enterprises Financial Safety and Soundness Act of 1992, as amended, based on loan-level mortgage data submitted by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The single-family data sets include detailed information such as the income, race, and gender of the borrower as well as the census tract location, loan-to-value (LTV) ratio, age of mortgage note, purchase/refinancing, and affordability.  The data also include property and unit-class information on all multifamily mortgages acquired by the Enterprises.  Multifamily property-level data include information on the size of the property, unpaid principal balance (UPB), and type of seller/servicer from which the Enterprise purchased the mortgage.  The multifamily unit-class file includes information on the number and type and affordability of the units.  Both the single-family and multifamily data include indicators of whether the purchases were from “underserved” census tracts, as defined in terms of their median income and percentage minority population. The Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 (HERA) requires the disclosure to the public of data elements required to be reported under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act of 1975 (HMDA) at the census tract level.  FHFA has added to the PUDB Census Tract files certain HMDA data fields reported by the Enterprises to FHFA to implement this HERA requirement.  The new HMDA data fields are described in FHFA’s Notice of Order published in the Federal Register on July 15, 2010 and include single-family rate spread, HOEPA status, and property type, and both single-family and multifamily lien status.

The PUDB single-family data set consists of three files: Census Tract, National A, and National B files.  The Census Tract file includes information on the location of the property based on the 2000 Census, while the National files lack detailed geographic information.  The multifamily data set consists of two data files for each year: Census Tract and National files.  The National file of the multifamily data set excludes location information.  This is the sixth year for which locations are specified, in the two Census Tract files, in terms of the 2000 Census geocoding system.

The single-family and multifamily data sets covering the entire nation are available as ASCII downloads in zip files.  The zip files also contain a “Data Dictionary” describing the elements in each corresponding data set.  In addition, the Census Tract zip files include files that give State, MSA, and county names corresponding to the numeric codes reported by the Enterprises.

HUD’s mission regulatory authority with regard to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, with the exception of matters pertaining to fair housing/lending, was transferred from HUD to FHFA by HERA.  HERA also transferred from HUD to FHFA the responsibility to maintain a public use database for the non-proprietary single-family and multifamily loan-level mortgage data elements submitted by the Enterprises to FHFA.