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Discussion Paper
Following Borrowers through Forbearance
Today, the New York Fed’s Center for Microeconomic Data reported that total household debt balances increased slightly in the third quarter of 2020, according to the latest Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit. This increase marked a reversal from the modest decline in the second quarter of 2020, a downturn driven by a sharp contraction in credit card balances. In the third quarter, credit card balances declined again, even as consumer spending recovered somewhat; meanwhile, mortgage originations came in at a robust $1.049 trillion, the highest level since 2003. Many of the efforts ...
Discussion Paper
Household Borrowing in Historical Perspective
Today, the New York Fed’s Center for Microeconomic Data released its Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit for the first quarter of 2017. The report shows a rise in household debt balances in the quarter of $149 billion, the eleventh consecutive quarterly increase since the long period of deleveraging following the Great Recession. As of March 31, 2017, household debt balances stood at $12.73 trillion, surpassing the previous 2008 peak and hitting a level 14 percent above the trough seen in the second quarter of 2013. With this report’s release, we’re adding two new charts which ...
Discussion Paper
What Happens during Mortgage Forbearance?
As we discussed in our previous post, millions of mortgage borrowers have entered forbearance since the beginning of the pandemic, and more than 2 million remain in a program as of March 2021. In this post, we use our Consumer Credit Panel (CCP) data to examine borrower behavior while in forbearance. The credit bureau data are ideal for this purpose because they allow us to follow borrowers over time, and to connect developments on the mortgage with those on other credit products. We find that forbearance results in reduced mortgage delinquencies and is associated with increased paydown of ...
Discussion Paper
FHA First-Time Buyer Homeownership Sustainability: An Update
An important part of the mission of the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) is to provide affordable mortgages that both promote the transition from renting to owning and create “sustainable” homeownership. The FHA has never defined what it means by sustainability. However, we developed a scorecard in 2018 that tracks the long-term outcomes of FHA first-time buyers (FTBs) and update it again in this post. The data show that from 2011 to 2016 roughly21.8 percent of FHA FTBs failed to sustain their homeownership.
Discussion Paper
Just Released: Press Briefing on Student Loan Borrowing and Repayment Trends, 2015
This morning, Jamie McAndrews, the Director of Research at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, spoke to the press about the economic recovery, and his speech was followed by a special briefing by New York Fed economists on student loans. Here, we provide a short summary of the student loan briefing.
Discussion Paper
Breaking Down Auto Loan Performance
Debt balances continued to rise at a moderate pace in the fourth quarter of 2024, and delinquencies, particularly for auto loans and credit cards, remained elevated, according to the latest Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit from the New York Fed’s Center for Microeconomic Data. Auto loan balances have grown steadily since 2011, expanding by $48 billion in 2024. This increase reflects a steady inflow of newly originated auto loan balances, which in 2024 were boosted primarily by originations to very prime borrowers (those with credit scores over 760) while originations to ...
Discussion Paper
Credit Card Markets Head Back to Normal after Pandemic Pause
Total household debt balances increased by $16 billion in the second quarter of 2023, according to the latest Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit from the New York Fed’s Center for Microeconomic Data. This reflects a modest rise from the first quarter. Credit card balances saw the largest increase of all debt types—$45 billion—and now stand at $1.03 trillion, surpassing $1 trillion in nominal terms for the first time in the series history. After a sharp contraction in the first year of the pandemic, credit card balances have seen seven quarters of year-over-year growth. The ...
Discussion Paper
Household Formation within the “Boomerang Generation”
Young Americans? living arrangements have changed strikingly over the past fifteen years, with recent cohorts entering the housing market at much lower rates and lingering much longer in their parents? households. The New York Times Magazine reported this past summer on the surge in college-educated young people who ?boomerang? back to living with their parents after graduation. Joining that trend are the many other members of this cohort who have never left home, whether or not they attend college. Why might young people increasingly reside with their parents? They may be unable to find ...
Report
The financial crisis at the kitchen table: trends in household debt and credit
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York (FRBNY) Consumer Credit Panel, created from a sample of U.S. consumer credit reports, is an ongoing panel of quarterly data on individual and household debt. The panel shows a substantial run-up in total consumer indebtedness between the first quarter of 1999 and the peak in the third quarter of 2008, followed by a steady decline through the third quarter of 2010. During the same period, delinquencies rose sharply: Delinquent balances peaked at the close of 2009 and then began to decline again. This paper documents these trends and discusses their sources. ...
Discussion Paper
An Update on the Health of the U.S. Consumer
The strength of consumer spending so far this year has surprised most private forecasters. In this post, we examine the factors behind this strength and the implications for consumption in the coming quarters. First, we revisit the measurement of “excess savings” that households have accumulated since 2020, finding that the estimates of remaining excess savings are very sensitive to assumptions about measurement, estimation period, and trend type, which renders them less useful. We thus broaden the discussion to other aspects of the household balance sheet. Using data from the New York ...