FHA single-family mortgage data

Restricted loan-level data: not exercised here

The FHA loan-level origination-and-performance microdata used in academic default research is restricted administrative data, often matched to confidential HMDA, reached through HUD or a supervisory arrangement; it carries no provenance badge because there is no access path we can run here. HUD does publish public aggregate FHA products (described below), which are free, but they are not the loan-level file. The Frame, Huang, Jiang, Lee, Liu, Mayer & Sunderam paper states its underlying FHA microdata is proprietary and was not accessed. This is the honest grade under the institute’s Verified discipline.

FHA single-family data describes mortgages insured by the Federal Housing Administration (part of HUD). Two distinct things travel under this name:

• Public aggregates (free). HUD publishes the FHA Single Family Portfolio Snapshot (monthly endorsement and portfolio counts), the FHA Single Family Loan Performance Trends report, the Annual Report to Congress on the Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund, and Neighborhood Watch (lender-level early-default and early-claim rates).

• Loan-level microdata (restricted). The population of FHA single-family originations with borrower, loan-term, and delinquency-outcome fields is administrative data. It is used in, for example Frame, Huang, Jiang, Lee, Liu, Mayer & Sunderam for the population of FHA originations and a default analysis (90+ days delinquent), reached as confidential data and matched to confidential HMDA.

• Cost: public aggregates are free; the loan-level microdata is restricted, not for sale.

• Source: HUD / Federal Housing Administration.

• Coverage: FHA-insured single-family mortgages (a selected, higher-LTV, more first-time-buyer population), not the whole mortgage market.

Access

• Public aggregates. Reach the FHA single-family data products from HUD’s FHA data pages and Neighborhood Watch (neighborhoodwatch.hud.gov). These are aggregate or lender-level, downloadable without an account.
• Restricted loan-level. The loan-level origination-and-performance file is obtained through HUD or a supervisory arrangement, frequently matched to the confidential HMDA microdata at the Federal Reserve, inside a controlled environment with disclosure review. There is no public download.

Gotchas (the ones that bite pipelines)

These are the failure modes to expect; the restricted file was not run here.

• Public aggregates are not the loan-level file. The portfolio snapshot is monthly counts and the performance trends are aggregates; neither substitutes for loan-level outcomes. Do not infer borrower-level results from the public products.
• FHA is a selected population. FHA insures lower-down-payment, higher-LTV, more first-time-buyer loans, so FHA default rates do not generalise to the conventional or jumbo market. State the population.
• “Default” is defined several ways. Ninety-plus days delinquent, insurance claim, and foreclosure are different events; pick one and state it. Cure and reinstatement create spells, so a static default flag misses the dynamics.
• Servicing transfers fragment loan histories. A loan can change servicers over its life, so assembling a clean performance panel requires tracking the loan, not the servicer.
• The research file is disclosure-controlled. Loan-level FHA work matched to confidential HMDA leaves the secure environment only after review and cannot be redistributed, so results are not reproducible from public files.

Citation

Cite the specific FHA product used (a named public aggregate, or the restricted loan-level administrative data), with the vintage, the population, and the default definition. For restricted loan-level work, state the access route and that output was disclosure-reviewed.