CFPB Issues Report on Servicemember Mortgage Patterns

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has published its first report on mortgages made to military personnel and veterans who are first-time homebuyers.

 

According to the report “Mortgages to First-time Homebuying Servicemembers,” the share of first-time homebuying servicemembers using VA mortgages swelled from 30 percent before 2007 to 63 percent in 2009, with more than three-quarters of this demographic’s home loans coming from the VA. In comparison, non-servicemember first-time homebuyers relied increasingly FHA and USDA mortgages from 2007 to 2009, but that reliance waned after 2009.

 

The CFPB also determined that conventional mortgages accounted for 60 percent of loans among first-time homebuying servicemembers in 2006 and 2007, but this share declined to 13 percent by 2016. By comparison, the conventional loan share among non-servicemembers fell from almost 90 percent before 2008 to 41 percent in 2009, then increased back to 60 percent in 2016. The median loan amount for first-time homebuying servicemembers with a VA loan increased in nominal dollars from $156,000 in 2006 to $212,000 in 2016, which is roughly equal to loan amounts for non-servicemembers.

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