The distribution of federally insured mortgages in Charlotte, NC: evidence from municipal land records

Omer Ali, University of Pittsburgh
Randall Walsh, University of Pittsburgh
Andreas Ferrara, University of Pittsburgh
Jonathan Rose, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago

The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) is credited with expanding home-ownership in the United States by extending federal insurance to mortgage lenders across the country. Founded in 1934, the FHA insured 200,000 mortgages in 1940 alone, accounting for a significant share of the total mortgage market. Records of this important government agency, however, have been difficult to obtain and, as a result, our understanding of its insurance practices remains limited. In particular, the extent to which race and socio-economic factors shaped its decisions continues to be an active area of debate. This paper presents an analysis of FHA-insured mortgages in Charlotte, NC. Using data collected from municipal land records, the study geo-codes addresses obtained from county documents to uncover the distribution of FHA-insured mortgages across neighborhoods that differ in socio-economic profile and racial composition. By examining the concentration of these mortgages within different neighborhoods, the paper aims to shed light on historical patterns of housing finance and residential development. Furthermore, we conduct a preliminary investigation into the association between the prevalence of FHA-insured mortgages around the middle of the twentieth century and contemporary outcomes, with a view towards understanding the shadow cast by historical housing policies on socio-economic disparities in the present.

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 137. New Data on the New Deal