Here are some fun facts to know and tell about credit unions as the Credit Union National Association holds its annual Governmental Affairs Conference in Washington, DC:
-California is the state with the most credit union mortgage lending, according to LendingPatterns™. So a list of CU home loans by Congressional district would be top heavy with districts from the Golden State, right? Actually, you have to scroll all the way down to number 41 before you see California. That’s the district of Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., which showed 4,036 credit union mortgages in 2015. Is that a mistake? Not if you consider that California has 53 congressional districts, the most in the country, so its CU share by district has to be cut 53 ways.
-So, which Congressman, had the most credit union mortgages close in his district for 2015? That would be Rep. Rod Blum, of the 1st Congressional district of Iowa. There were 9,401 home loans financed by credit unions in the Democrat’s district. Taking the silver and bronze, respectively, were Reid J. Ribble, Republican of Wisconsin’s 8th District, with 7,482, and Mark Pocan, Democrat of Wisconsin’s 2nd District, with 6,823.
-Which party has the most congressional districts in the top 50 credit union mortgage list? Looks as if the Grand Old Party takes this contest, too, in addition to the Presidency, House and Senate, with 32 to just 18 for the Democrats. Total loans closed in the top 50 districts came to more than 250,000.
-Number of CU home loans closed by all 53 states and territories in 2015? 688,230. California led, as expected, with 63,895, a little more than nine percent. Texas, Michigan, Wisconsin and New York were second through fifth, respectively.
-The falling number of credit unions is a trend that has been underway for years. But the number of credit unions reporting their HMDA data to the Federal Financial Institutions Examinations Council has fallen only by 63 in the years between 2004 and 2015 (2058 to 1995). To solve this puzzle we must remember that not all CUs are required to report, only those with assets of $44 million and higher. That suggests that the culling of credit unions has taken place mostly among smaller ones.
-No mistake which credit unions took the most applications for mortgages in 2015 (most accounts look to the number of originations, or number of denials. Navy Federal Credit Union took more than 168,000 apps in 2015, well ahead (five times ahead, actually) of bronze medalist State Employees CU (North Carolina) at about 29,000 and Pentagon FCU, which took the bronze at more than 22,000.
-Credit unions insured by the National Credit Union Administration had a 59 percent originations rate for 2015. (This does not include the very largest ones, which fall in the category the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau keeps its eye on. It also excludes mortgages purchased from third parties.) Denials came in at 21 percent and loans that fell out of the process just about the same, at 21 percent.
(Mark Fogarty is a journalist and analyst who has been covering the mortgage industry for more than 30 years.)
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