Research Report A Better Measure of Mortgage Application Denial Rates
Wei Li, Laurie Goodman
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The Housing Finance Policy Center’s new measure of the rate at which mortgage applications are denied – the real denial rate (RDR)– improves upon existing denial rate measures by considering only low-credit-profile applicants. The RDR better tracks trends in credit accessibility over time and reveals that the conventional channel has had a consistently tighter credit box over time than the government channel. The RDR also shows much smaller racial and ethnic distinctions in mortgage denial rates over time than are shown by the traditional measure.
Research Areas Economic mobility and inequality Housing finance Housing
Tags Federal housing programs and policies Housing markets Tracking the economy Single-family finance Credit availability Housing finance reform Homeownership Finance Financial stability
Policy Centers Housing Finance Policy Center