The Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA)

The Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA), enacted by Congress in 1975, requires most mortgage lenders located in metropolitan areas to collect data about their housing-related lending activity, report the data annually to the government, and make the data publicly available. Initially, HMDA required reporting of the geographic location of originated and purchased home loans. In 1989, Congress expanded HMDA data to include information about denied home loan applications, and the race, sex, and income of the applicant or borrower.

In 2002, the Federal Reserve Board (FRB) amended the regulation that implements HMDA (Regulation C) to add new data fields, including price data for some loans HMDA does not prohibit any lending activity, nor is it intended to encourage unsound lending practices or the allocation of credit.

Congress enacted HMDA to:

• Provide the public with information to judge whether lenders are serving their communities
• Enhance enforcement of laws prohibiting discrimination in lending
• Provide private investors and public agencies with information to guide investments in housing