A First: New Excel Database Has Details on 719,000 US First Time Home Buyer GSE Loan Acquisitions in 2018.

I have posted for many years data from the annual GSE [Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac] public use census tract level database, usually focusing on Oregon data. (While I was still at HUD I produced two reports showing, in 2000, the absence in Oregon of GSE loans for Black and Hispanic first time home buyers). 

The GSE data set is unique in that it includes a first time home buyer data field NOT found in HMDA data. 

If it isn't obvious, the location and recipients of first time home buyer loans is important because first time home buyer loans drive increases in home ownership rates. 

A few years ago analysis of the GSE data became more feasible because, following up my suggestion, Will White from Senator Merkley's staff got FHFA to post a Microsoft Access version of the GSE database. This made it easier to extract data into Excel. 

This year I decided to extract ONLY first time home buyer loans acquired by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for ALL states; a total of 719,697 loans. Interestingly only 470,140 (65%) of these first time home buyer loans are coded for purchase, the remainder are coded as refinances, home improvement, or purpose not available.

As in the past I added a number of NAME fields (instead of just codes) to the posted data to facilitate use. Those named fields I added include state, metro area, county, borrower race and ethnicity, and a borrower income group.

The full 2018 data dictionary for the GSE data (with 39 data fields for each loan) can be found HERE.

The resulting Excel file I created is HERE and it is LARGE (240MB's). [Be patient, it may take a few minutes to download].

The Excel workbook includes a Pivot table, the FTHB data, and a field listing. The default Pivot table view shows state totals and includes pull downs for metro areas and counties, and loan purpose. 

IF you're interested in who is getting GSE backed first time home buyer loans, and where, this is an important (and unique) resource. (The complete 2018 MS Access GSE census tract level database. with more than 3M records, is HERE).

Some Oregon examples, using the Pivot table to find first time home buyer data: 

• The universe of all FTHB loans was 11,140, but only 7,242 (65%) were coded as home purchase loans.
• Only 6,065 of the 7,242 FTHB home purchase loans had borrower race identified. Of those only 101 (1.7%) went to a Black first time borrower. 
• Of the 7,242  FTHB home purchase loans, 1,693 (23.4%) went to borrowers with incomes at or below 80% of median family income and 765 (10.6%) went to borrowers with incomes of 200% or more of median family income.

Note: The current GSE data will be updated later this fall to add some HMDA related data fields.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.