WASHINGTON—Credit unions are getting close but have not yet reached 10% of the overall national mortgage market, having taken a slight step back from a year earlier.
In several individual categories, however, CUs are already there, federal data show.
Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data National Credit Union Administration-insured institutions filed with the federal government last year for loans they made in 2016 show that credit unions have cracked the national 10% line in the numbers of mortgages made to women as primary borrowers, home improvement loans, mortgages held in portfolio, conventional (non-government) loans, subordinate liens and manufactured housing, among others.
Credit unions made one in every seven loans to women as primary borrowers that were reported for 2016 to the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (a unit of the Federal Reserve Bank) through HMDA. In percentages, that was 14.8%, or 94,000 loans out of 638,000 nationwide. That share was a little bit lower than 2015, when CUs extended home loans to 15.7% of this category.
The data come from sorts by LendingPatterns, a database of ComplianceTech, a fair lending and technology vendor in McLean, Va.
Credit unions also made more than 10% of mortgages to Native Americans for 2016. The 3,000 mortgages extended to Native-Americans came to 11% of 28,000 nationwide. That is down just slightly from 11.3% of the national market in 2015. CUs were also above 10% in 2016 of loans made to multiracial borrowers, at 10.4%.
For loans made to whites, credit unions claimed 9.4% (532,000) out of 5.7 million mortgages nationally.
Credit unions’ biggest national shares came in categories like home improvement lending, where they made more than one in every four HILs, 143,000 of 542,000 or 26.4%. CUs also had high shares in loans not secured by liens, at 28%. Indicating a robust home equity presence, credit unions made 43% of all subordinate liens for 2016 (89,000 of 206,000).
The sector had more than 10% share of manufactured housing loans, 10.2% of 141,000 financings.
Credit unions also had a good showing in conventional mortgages (those not insured or guaranteed by the federal government) with 11.4% of the national market (700,000 of 6.4 million loans). Of the “guvvie” loans CUs’ biggest share, 4%, came in the Department of Veterans Affairs category.
In the secondary market, credit unions had a sizeable share of loans held in portfolio instead of being sold off. CUs had 23% (490,000 mortgages) of mortgages that stayed on lenders’ books in 2016. Sales to Fannie Mae, at 7.2% of the national market, were their highest share of secondary activity.
The mortgage dollar national shares tended to be lower than the number shares for credit unions, indicating lower average mortgage amounts. The average mortgage size for 2016 for the total market was $271,000, versus $203,000 for credit unions.
On the dollar side, credit unions’ best shares came in home improvement loans (10.3%), subordinate liens (34%), and home loans not secured by liens (21%).
Overall, credit unions made about 750,000 mortgages in 2016, out of 8.4 million nationwide, for a share of 8.9%. That is down a little from 2015, when CUs notched a 9.3% share. Dollars loaned came to $128 million, or 5.9%.
In addition, the smallest credit unions (below $44 million in assets) are not required to file HMDA reports, though these tend not to be big mortgage lenders. Banks, mortgage banks and savings institutions below $44 million in assets are not required to file either.
HMDA numbers for 2017 are being reported right now by lenders, and will be released by the FFIEC in the fall.
—Mark Fogarty