​National Survey of Mortgage Originations (NSMO) Public Use File

The National Survey of Mortgage Originations (NSMO) is a component of the National Mortgage Database (NMDB^®) program.  It is a quarterly mail survey jointly funded and managed by the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).  NSMO provides unique and rich information for a nationally representative sample of newly originated closed-end first-lien residential mortgages in the United States, particularly about borrowers’ experiences getting a mortgage, their perceptions of the mortgage market, and their future expectations.  This voluntary survey is administered by Westat, a survey and data collection corporation, to the borrowers associated with the sample mortgages.  The respondents can either return the English questionnaire by mail or complete the survey online in English or Spanish. 

NSMO draws its sample from newly originated mortgages that are part of the NMDB, which is a 1-in-20 sample of closed-end first-lien residential mortgages newly reported to one of the three national credit bureaus.  Beginning with mortgages originated in 2013, a simple random sample of about 6,000 mortgages per quarter is drawn for NSMO from loans newly added to the NMDB.

The NSMO public use file was updated on February 20, 2020.  It is based on the first 21 quarterly waves of the survey, containing 29,962 sample mortgages originated from 2013 through 2017.  The original file was published on November 8, 2018, containing mortgages originated from 2013 through 2016.

News

• The NSMO survey has been conducted quarterly since the first quarter of 2014.  The 25th wave of the survey went into the field on February 3, 2020.  The survey package sent to the respondents can be viewed here.

• Data on loans originated in 2017 were released on February 20, 2020.  A file containing data on loans originated through 2018 should be released by the end of the calendar year.       

• If you would like to sign up to receive email notifications when the NSMO data or documents are updated, please enter your email in the “Want to Subscribe” section on the bottom of the page.

Dataset

The Public Use File (PUF) is available in several formats including CSV, JSON, R, SAS, Stata, and XML.  By ​downloading and using the following data files, you are acknowledging​ that you have read and agreed to the Notice of Monitoring and Terms of Service​.

Link to Public Use File​ (2/20/2020)

Code 

SAS Labels (2/20/2020)

SAS Formats​ (2/20/2020)

Documentation

NSMO Technical Documentation​ (2/20/2020)

Codebook and Tabulations​ (2/20/2020)

Questionnaires

Waves 19 to 22 (2018 Quarter 3 to 2019 Quarter 2)

Waves  15 to 18 (2017 Quarter 3 to 2018 Quarter 2)​

Waves 13 and 14 (2017 Quarters 1 and 2)

Waves 11 and 12 (2016 Quarters 3 and 4)

Wave 10 (2016 Quarter 2)

Wave 9 (2016 Quarter 1)

Wave 8 (2015 Quarter 4)

Wave 7 (2015 Quarter 3)

Waves 5 and 6 (2015 Quarters 1 and 2)

Wave 4 (2014 Quarter 4)

Wave 3 (2014 Quarter 3)​

Waves 1 and 2 (2014 Quarters 1 and 2)

​Contacts

If you have any questions or comments about the data or documents, please email nsmo@fhfa.gov or visit our input page​ and select National Survey of Mortgage Originations (NSMO) as the topic.

Page last updated:  March 10, 2020