Economic Dimensions of the Foreclosure Crisis: A Focus on the New York City MSA

Employing Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data on loan originations from 2004 – 2010 and 2010 New York State preforeclosure filing notices, this study seeks to identify the correlation between some characteristics of census tracts and the distribution of pre-foreclosure filing notices and high cost loans within the New York City metropolitan area from 2006 through 2012. The findings are examined within the context of the census tracts within which borrowers resided. American Community Survey data on employment-population ratios, poverty rates, and median household income were then matched to our HMDA-PFF dataset to obtain a measure of the relationship of particular census tract variables to default rates. Our analysis of the data finds that differences in census tract characteristics have a statistically significant effect on default and foreclosure patterns